Local authorities should get rid of huge amounts of meaningless meetings and improve working efficiency, says an editorial in Beijing Youth Daily. Excerpts:

According to Xinhua News Agency, a local bureau’s leading official asked his staff to calculate the number of meetings he has attended in a year. It turned out that he attended 1,068 meetings, or almost three meetings every day.

Numerous meetings are common in many local authorities, a situation that will not help productivity and may even adversely affect it. To implement a project, local authorities always hold a huge amount of meetings, which impedes the efficiency of policymaking and implementation.

The problem is not only that there are too many meetings, but that many of the meetings are inane and boring. Generally, there are empty opening speeches by several leaders at the meeting, which do nothing but waste time. Many speechmakers only give empty talks at meetings that can’t solve any real problems. Such meetings are fully of empty and meaningless words, which can’t benefit practical work at all.

Moreover, such useless meetings and entertainment in the name of meetings waste a huge amount of taxpayers’ money. Some officials use meetings as an excuse for luxurious dining and traveling, a fact that provokes serious public dissatisfaction.

The importance of certain meetings cannot be denied. Meetings are a means to effectively convey and discuss ideas and thoughts, which may become a powerful guarantee of practical work. What we criticize are the meaningless, inane and luxurious meetings that can’t benefit our society at all.

Officials and staff should be liberated from countless useless meetings, which may remarkably improve working efficiency and solve practical problems better.

Translated by Wang Yiqing