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Beijing Ends Limits on Business by Non-residents

Beijing may soon allow people from other regions to more easily set up businesses in the Chinese capital.

Local regulations, enacted in 1995, forbade non-locals from beginning businesses in the city without a temporary local residency permit.

Although a temporary residence card system is to remain intact, at least for the time being, municipal authorities said that neither a local residence card, nor an employment permit will be required for non-locals to begin businesses in Beijing.

This means that people from other parts of the country will, for the first time in decades, be placed on an equal footing with the capital's residents sometime in March 2005.

This policy change is considered a remarkable step forward in the nation's ongoing effort to build a harmonious society, an important aspect of today's economic development process.

With a booming economy and more mobile population, the 10-year-old rule is rapidly becoming dated. Free mobility is a basic right of the Chinese people under the Constitution. But citizens' basic rights have not been well-respected in the past and are still widely compromised.

In a transitional society as large as China, the government worries that a chaotic free flow of people could have a huge effect on social stability.

Since the country embarked on the reform and opening-up policy more than two decades ago, an influx of migrant workers into the cities has been an unprecedented challenge for urban managers.

With strained resources, a problem that is more acute in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, legislation was created to manage the influx. In the process, the principle that all citizens are equal before the law was often overlooked, but the concerns about migrant labourers were justifiable.

Balancing people's civil and constitutional rights and the need to manage cities was and remains a tough test for China's policy-makers, a test that Beijing's leaders are ready take on.