Authorities to scrap sponsor rule for NGOs

Rules governing the operation of non-governmental organizations in China may be relaxed soon, according to this report in the South China Morning Post (reg required): “Non-governmental organisations will eventually be able to register to work on the mainland without having to be sponsored by a government department, a Ministry of Civil Affairs official has predicted… Insiders say the government is drafting a new Management of Social Societies regulation, under which major changes such as the lifting of the supervisory requirement have been debated. Wang Ming , head of the NGO Study Institute at Tsinghua University, said NGOs on the mainland were being given more latitude to develop. He said although a package of new policies – covering everything from tax deductions to the public supervision system – was needed, the first step had to be changing the entry requirements for NGOs… While official statistics indicate China has 262,000 local NGOs, Mr Qiao admits many more are working throughout the nation.”

For more on the regulations governing NGOs, see here.