国内英语新闻:China makes headway in handling petitions this year

BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Petitions across China have been handled with increased quality and efficiency by local authorities since the beginning of the year, according to a national conference attended by chiefs of local petition-handling administrations.

Petitioning, also known as "letters and calls," is China's administrative system for hearing public complaints and grievances. In China, petitioners generally see injustices in areas including land acquisition, education and environmental protection, among others.

The conference, which was held in Beijing Thursday and Friday, noted that authorities in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province found 1,866 petition cases involving housing this year in a campaign on solving housing-related complaints. These cases have been transferred to inspection teams of the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.

So far, 1.57 million households in Heilongjiang have been granted property ownership certificates, arrears for migrant workers worth 250 million yuan (about 36.4 million U.S. dollars) have been cleared, and 48,000 relocated households have moved to new homes.

Developments of addressing petitions in the provinces of Anhui and Zhejiang were also reported during the conference.

A total of 130,000 petitioners in Anhui have submitted around 180,000 letters via online petition-handling platforms. Online smart assistants have dealt with more than 10,000 complaints, shortening the time for handling a complaint by 22 days on average.

In Zhejiang, authorities are building county-level petition centers where petitioners can enjoy the one-stop service of submitting complaints and seeking mediation.

"It is important to think about worst-case scenarios while handling petitions and have the determination to resolve complaints," said Shu Xiaoqin, head of the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration, which was previously known as State Bureau for Letters and Calls.