The Ministry of Finance ("MOF") and the National Development and Reform Commission ("NDRC") have recently distributed the Circular on Cleaning up and Regulating a Number of Policies on Administrative and Institutional Fees (the "Circular") which will enter into force as of the date of promulgation.
The Circular clearly states that from April 1, 2017, 41 types of administrative and institutional fees that are set up by the central government will be eliminated or no longer be charged, and the charge for trademark registration will be reduced by 50 percent. According to the Circular, there are 35 types of enterprise-related administrative and institutional fees that will be eliminated or no longer be charged, among which 12 types will be cancelled, including the fee charged for evaluating the price of a property involved in a non-criminal case, fee charged for frontier inspections, supervision and protection outside ports, fee charged for registering the pledge of an automotive vehicle, service fee charged for monitoring the environment, and service fee charged for transferring a real property, and the rest 23 types will no longer be charged, such as the registration fee (including the registration fee for performing environmental protection examination against imported wastes and the registration fee for importing chemicals), hygienic inspection fee, charge for the protection right for new plant species, entry-exit inspection and quarantine fee, testing fee (including the drug testing fee and testing fee for medical devices and products), and fee for registering the copyright of computer software.