A view of Shanghai Photo: VCG

China's Ministry of Justice is working with other government agencies to accelerate the amendment of important laws including the Law against Unfair Competition, Accounting Law and Tender and Bidding Law, a senior ministry official said on Thursday, as the nation steps up efforts to build a world-class, market-oriented and law-ruled business environment to facilitate high-quality development.

"In legislation and law enforcement, we fairly protect the property rights of state-owned enterprises, private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises as well as the legal rights and interests of entrepreneurs," Justice Minister He Rong said at a press conference. She said the move will improve institutional norms in various aspects including property rights protection, market entry, fair competition and social credit.

She said the ministry is conducting amendments to the Arbitration Law so as to build an arbitration system with Chinese characteristics and expand the opening-up of foreign-related arbitration. The ministry is also accelerating the enforcement of foreign-related laws such as the Anti-Money Laundering Law.

While boosting law enforcement, authorities are strengthening the removal of administrative rules that go against the fairness principle. In October, the State Council, the cabinet, said the country will remove or adjust 33 types of fines related to administrative regulations and departmental rules amid efforts to foster a more welcoming business climate and slash operational costs for market entities.

In addition to optimizing the business environment for the country's high-level opening-up and high-quality development, the ministry has moved to consolidate achievements in providing legal guarantees for the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

To date, the Ministry of Justice has signed bilateral treaties such as exchange and cooperation plans and memoranda of understandings with approximately 30 BRI partner countries' justice departments, which have effectively improved the level of trust between China and these countries, Tian Xin, director of the Bureau of Lawyers' Work, part of the Ministry of Justice, said at the same conference on Thursday.

The Belt and Road International Lawyers Association, a China-initiated international organization focusing on providing legal services, has made great strides in building a platform for legal services cooperation between related countries, Tian said.

The association already has more than 2,600 members from 54 countries and regions, and nine professional committees and 34 national or regional working groups have been established, Tian said.