China's Communist Party has proposed amending the national constitution to protect the rights of private businesses and permit the transfer of land-use rights, the official China Daily said Monday. The report said the amendments would ensure privately owned entities, an increasingly important sector in the Chinese economy, the right to exist and develop as a complement to China's socialist system. Private businesses, defined as individually owned enterprises with eight or more workers, have existed since 1981, two years after China launched economic reform programs based on encouraging personal initiative and a market-oriented economy. The newspaper said there are now about 225,000 such enterprises. China also has what it calls an individual economy, about 18 million people who run street stalls and other one-man or family operations. The newspaper said the party has submitted the proposals to the National People's Congress Standing Committee, which opened a meeting Saturday, and asked the committee to put them on the agenda of the annual full session of the NPC, convening later this month.
