The State Council, China's cabinet, has posted on its official website a draft for a revised version of regulations to curb illegal fundraising and is seeking public feedback.
The draft says that those found to be involved in illegal fundraising should bear all of the losses incurred, and local governments should take measures to maintain social stability while addressing illegal fundraising.
Chinese authorities vowed in April to step up a crackdown on illegal fundraising scams, after 5,197 cases of it were reported last year involving 251.1 billion yuan ($36.5 billion), State media reported.
More than 30 percent of illegal fundraising cases were related to private investment and financial intermediaries, including unlicensed investment advisers and providers of third-party wealth management products.
The new document also requires local authorities to provide assistance to investigations in several situations such as fundraising through online financial platforms, asset management, and sales of insurance and other money management products.
Also, it encourages the public to report dubious fundraising cases, and local authorities should set up award systems for people who help in this regard.
In recent years, illegal fundraising has changed and it now relies more and more on the Internet, according to media reports in June. And the number of cases handled by the courts in Beijing increased 101.77 percent year-on-year from January to November in 2016.
