One year on: Xi Jinping's 'eight rules' see effect

Want China Times, Liang Shih-huang and Staff Reporter 2013-12-07

A bottle of Guizhou Maotai given by Zhou Enlai to Kimiyo Matsuzaki, a member
 of the Japanese national table tennis team in 1961, which she presented to the
Guizhou Maotai Group 50 years later to the day, April 20, 2011. (Photo/CNS)

The Politburo of the Communist Party of China dished out eight rules to crack down on official extravagance in December last year. Chinese media reports suggest that after one year of implementation, the extravagance in using public funds has dropped significantly, and nearly 20,000 officials have been punished for violations.

An executive at a large real estate development firm said government organizations have become more efficient. He noted that applications for five required documents for the construction and sale of houses now only take five business days to complete.

Affected by the eight rules, the restaurant, alcohol, fresh flower and tourism industries are not growing at the rate they were when they were making money from official contracts.

China's Food and Drug Administration announced recently that liquor bottles cannot be labeled for specific groups. Major white liquor producers such as Maotai, Wuliangye Yibin Company, and Luzhou Laojiao said they had halted production for liquor for specific groups before the implementation of the eight rules last year.

Teng Xiaoyan, a director at the Beijing office of the Jiangsu Yanhe Brewery, explained that this special liquor was just a customized product designed to meet the demands of certain clients, rather than an attempt to target a specific group. She added that her company had stopped labeling liquor for specific uses as well.

According to statistics compiled by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, 19,896 people in 17,380 cases were punished for violating the eight rules as of October this year.