(Yicai) Feb. 22 -- The drawing up of legislation to stimulate the private economy is being accelerated in China to realize the equal treatment of both state-owned and private companies in the eyes of the law and to boost entrepreneur confidence, according to a recent government-led symposium.

Legislation should focus on protecting private firms’ property as well as entrepreneurs’ rights and interests, according to the meeting held yesterday by the Ministry of Justice, National Development and Reform Commission as well as the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee.

Other areas of emphasis should be fair participation in market competition, equal use of production factors and governance of overdue payments to small and medium-sized firms, they added.

Legislation is key to stabilizing expectations and boosting confidence, said Liu Xingguo, special senior researcher at the China Enterprise Confederation. The spirit of the law will make entrepreneurs understand the significance of the country’s legal protection targeting the private economy.

Over the past few months, the government has rolled out many policies to support the development of the private economy, said Huang Yiping, deputy head of Peking University’s National School of Development. However, many businessmen still lack confidence as they are not sure whether these policies will be executed or not and if they are implemented they don’t know how long they will remain effective for.

There have been murmurs of increased government support for the private economy since the beginning of the year.

The NDRC will link arms with other authorities to implement more measures including accelerating the formulation of legislation to facilitate the growth of the private economy, Chairman Zheng Shanjie said on Jan. 2.

Law formulation to spur the private economy needs to be hurried along, in order to construct a guarantee system made up of laws and businesses, that will boost the growth of the private economy, a NDRC official said on Jan. 9.

Editor: Kim Taylor