Premier Li Keqiang urged canceling unnecessary certificates at the State Council executive meeting on Sept 12.

“Wind certificates used to be required for a car damaged by hurricane, and one had to find a third party to issue a certificate of ‘not being vandalized intentionally’ when exchanging worn or torn banknotes at the bank,” Premier Li said. “It costs the public too much to handle government affairs, so could we release some tough measures to regulate these certificates?”

Related departments were asked to further sort out government bodies requiring certificates, thus cutting redundancies from the source.

Premier Li stressed that certificates not supported by law or regulations will not be requested, while those required must be listed by related bodies, and approved by judicial and administrative departments.

All kinds of bizarre certificates have bothered the public for some time, and they increased institutional costs in handling government affairs and gave rise to corruption, the Premier said.

The public should be well informed about required certificates, and any acts of arbitrarily demanding certificates should be corrected, in order to solve the problem from the source, he added.