TREE NEWS update: China’s National Development and Reform Commission will require all public service fees to be included in a published catalogue, with no charges permitted outside the list, said Zhang Luqin, deputy director of the NDRC’s price department. The commission will guide local authorities to set reasonable fee standards and conduct dynamic reviews during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and will bar any fee not publicly disclosed or inconsistent with policy. Elderly care and funeral services were cited as sectors where arbitrary add-ons and forced sales must be avoided.
NDRC to standardize public service fees, no charges outside approved list
The significance here is procedural rather than fiscal: a published fee catalogue plus a ban on off-list charges shifts discretion away from local fee-setters toward disclosure, which matters most for households consuming elderly care and funeral services, where add-ons and forced sales have been flagged. The named sectors signal where enforcement attention is likely concentrated. The open question is implementation — whether dynamic reviews during the 15th Five-Year Plan period produce genuine standard-setting or merely re-catalogued existing charges, and whether unpublished fees are actually penalized.
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