Major progress has been made in administrative reform, with top priority on streamlining administration and delegating power, said the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Sept 1.

According to Chen Jie, researcher from the Policy Research Office of NDRC, specific measures that simplify approval procedures, strengthen supervision and optimize services have been adopted to expand the reform. The measures are mainly focused on three aspects: administrative approval procedure, investment and government pricing.

Chen said that in regard to reducing approval items, the goal of “cutting the number of items that require government review by one-third” was achieved ahead of schedule in 2014. And based on the number of approval items in early 2013, when the reform started, canceled or delegated items have now surpassed 60 percent.

In terms of investment, central government has cut 76 percent of approval items, with 98 percent outbound investment and 95 percent foreign investment now allowed to get registered online. In addition, NDRC canceled 18 post conditions for achieving enterprises’ autonomy and 32 items on applications for construction, said Chen.

Chen elaborated that 80 percent of central government pricing catalogue has been reduced, while 55 percent was reduced in 31 provincial regions. Government has also loosened control over the pricing of 2,000 drugs in the pharmaceutical industries.