42 laws, regulations take effect in China
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-05-02 09:01
Forty-two state and local laws and regulations went into effect Monday,
involving price fixing and disease control.
Operators who overcharge consumers and refuse to refund will be confiscated
of the illegal gain and compensate consumers' losses, according to a revised
State Council regulation on delivering administrative penalty to illegal price
fixing practice.
In another regulation on price fixing, government agencies are required to
take the initiative in carrying out research on price range, conducting survey
among social circles on price change and group reviews as well as publicizing
final decisions.
To prevent schistosomiasis from spreading, the Ministry of Health has
promulgated a regulation to control and treat the disease, which stipulates that
the government offer farmers free preventive medicines and cut or exempt
treatment fee of poor farmers .
The State Environmental Protection Administration has issued policy measures
to ensure environment safety of pathogenic microbe labs, demanding the labs set
up a dangerous waste registration system, not discard or pile up wastes at will
or put them among other trash.
It highlighted that supervisors of the labs are responsible for preventing
and addressing pollution caused by waste water and gas and dangerous wastes.
A new mandatory national standard has also come into effect Monday, banning
production of "cup" jellies with a diameter smaller than 3.5 centimeters to curb
the number of choking cases, particularly among children and the elderly.
In Beijing, a new regulation allowed college graduates who have not found
jobs to apply for bank loans of up to 500,000 yuan (62,500 U.S. dollars) to
start a business, the same as the unemployed, migrant workers from countryside
and soldiers back to civilian work.
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