Charity law draft expected to be reviewed in 2015

(ECNS) - A draft charity legislation has been formulated and is expected to be submitted to the National People's Congress of China for review by the end of 2015, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.

Although China's economic aggregate reached 39.8 trillion yuan ($6.3 trillion) in 2013, ranking second in the world, its donations to domestic charities amounted to less than 100 billion yuan ($16.1 billion), far behind the number for some developed countries, said Wang Shengming, deputy director of the Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee, at a press conference of the annual parliamentary session in 2015. [Special coverage]

"I think there are two main reasons. The first is the statistical calculation method. In the past, only donations for the poor and disaster relief have been considered charity, while funding to other causes, namely education, healthcare, scientific research and environmental protection, have not been included," he said.

Wang added that China's charity development is still in its initial stage, and that the institutional order and transparency of charity operations need to be improved.

As the lead drafter of the charity law, the Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee worked out legislation for consultation in February, creating special regulations for charity management and allocation of funds, according to Wang.

Without a specialized law on charities, the development of philanthropy in China is still in an immature stage, so speeding up legislative work for charities is not only necessary, but also urgent, said Zhang Gaorong, director of the Research Department of the Chinese Public Welfare Institute at China Normal University.

The lack of a clear definition of philanthropy has always been a point of dispute for China's charity legislative process, and it should be ascertained by law, according to Jia Xijin, associate professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University.

Experts are calling for information disclosure and oversight to improve and specialize the use of charity funds, reports have said.

China began legislation of charities in 2005, but failed to submit a draft to authorities for review until now. The draft has been modified many times.