The chairman and vice chairpersons of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) met on Wednesday afternoon.

They reviewed opinions from lawmakers about a draft amendment to the surveying and mapping law, which is undergoing a second reading at the bi-monthly session of the NPC Standing Committee.

The meeting was presided over by Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

They also reviewed opinions on draft plans on a quota for electing new NPC deputies for regions and ethnic groups, a border defense cooperation agreement among member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as a treaty on transferring convicted criminal offenders between China and Tajikistan.

After further revisions, the documents will be reviewed at the next meeting of the chairman and vice chairpersons, during which they will decide whether to put them to vote.

Zhou Chunyu, vice governor of east China’s Anhui Province, is under investigation for suspected serious violations of the Party code of conduct, China’s anti-graft authority said Wednesday.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China released the news on its website.

China will keep integrating business certifications and licenses into one consolidated business license, which is to further reduce institutional costs for market entities and stimulate market vitality as part of the country’s business registration reform.

The decision was made at a State Council executive meeting, which was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday and approved a guideline on its implementation.

With this policy in action, different certificates related to business registration will be sorted out and merged into one business license, making enterprises ready for operations once they obtain the license with no further delay.

“We should focus on creating a globally competitive business environment and continuing the business registration reform. It’s to reduce institutional costs for enterprises and cultivate an inclusive and fair backdrop for mass entrepreneurship and innovation as more enterprises can be easily registered and flourish,” Li said.

As a significant measure to boost the supply-side structural reform and administrative reforms, the integration of certificates will further transform governmental functions and unleash benefits enabled by reforms, the guideline said.

The document required integration, simplification and abolition of certificates as much as possible with a handful of exceptions involving safety and security concerns. Any of enterprise-related certificates and licenses with no statuary foundations or set without due legal procedures will be canceled.

The guideline aimed to boost inter-departmental sharing of basic and credit information of enterprises. Repetition in submitting identical registration information will be avoided. Integration of the Internet with governmental services will be further boosted to improve efficiency for approvals.

Supervision will be strengthened to oversee registration and post-registration procedures with clearly-defined departmental responsibilities, while a new supervisory mechanism will be established centering on corporate credits.

The document also encouraged local governments to explore new ways in the integration process and boost assessment and rankings for local business facilitation in accordance with international benchmarks for business environment.

On Oct. 1, 2015, China merged the business license, the organizational code certificate and the tax registration certificate into one.

One year later, the country further encompassed the social insurance registration certificate and the statistical registration certificate into the business license, a move that has significantly reduced institutional costs.

A State Council executive meeting on Oct. 14, 2016 decided that more enterprises-related certificates will be integrated with the business license to facilitate business startups, boost social creativity and boost employment.

Further actions have been undertaken since to accelerate the process.

It was suggested in the Government Work Report Li delivered in March with an aim to promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

Li said that the integration of certificates is an effective way to improve productivity. While numerous certificates still exist, relevant departments need to “give up petty benefits for greater achievements by adding more water to nourish fish in the pond,” a metaphor to symbolize making enterprises thrive with streamlined procedures. He also called for enhanced information-sharing and disclosure as much as possible.

More than 3.59 million new market entities were registered in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 19.5 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. Among them were 1.26 million new enterprises, up by 18 percent.

Li said implementation is the key. “To ease burdens for enterprises and for the sake of the people, governments at all levels should focus on improving services and strengthening compliance oversight with special focus on the last mile of service delivery.”

Wednesday’s meeting also decided to change five business registrations from pre-setup approvals into post-setup approvals.

Ten of China’s major news agencies and websites formed a union in Beijing on Wednesday in order to provide better copyright protection for the media.

The union was set up at a conference on internet copyright protection, where a declaration of the union was read by Zhou Xisheng, CEO of ChinaSo, a search engine set up by the country’s major news organizations, and a founding member of the union.

According to the declaration, the union will play a significant part in issues including the unified management of news copyright, and will support its members to uphold their own copyrights.

The declaration also criticized misconduct in the news business, such as piracy, incorrect or fake quotes and unauthorized reprints, which severely hurt the enthusiasm of journalists and negatively affect the sustainable development of the business.

The union has called for the society to respect and protect news copyrights, and has asked for more news organizations to join the union to improve the situation.

A total of 115 media outlets released a joint statement at the conference, also calling for better copyright protection in the news business.

China has been emphasizing the importance of copyright protection recently, as a national copyright monitoring website was set up on April 20, which was seen as a step forward in the nation’s crackdown on piracy.

The website, www.12426.cn, is managed by the Copyright Monitoring Center under the Copyright Society of China, providing identification, security monitoring, early warning and rights infringement solution services for registered copyright owners.

Jiaolong, China’s manned submersible, completed a dive Wednesday in the South China Sea.

Departing its mother ship Xiangyanghong 09 at around 7 a.m., Jiaolong stayed underwater for nine hours and twelve minutes for the dive before returning at around 4:19 p.m.

It managed to bring 16 liters of sea water samples collected near the seabed, eight sediment samples and two rock samples back to Xiangyanghong 09, in addition to high-definition photos and video footage shot during the mission.

Wednesday’s dive marks the first dive by Jiaolong in the second stage of China’s 38th ocean scientific expedition, which will last until May 13.

The maximum depth of the Jiaolong mission on Wednesday was 1,741 meters below sea level, and the submersible spent some seven hours on the seabed.

Three staff, including one seasoned crew member, Tang Jialing, and two interns, Liu Xiaohui and Yang Yifan, were on board the submersible.

“This is almost Jiaolong’s longest underwater mission,” said Tang.

In an interview with Xinhua prior to the drive, Yang Yaomin, chief scientist for the second stage expedition, said experts had planned to choose a site for experimenting with the collection of polymetallic nodules during the mission.

“We are working to avoid damaging the marine environment in mining,” said Yang. “The expedition will help develop technology for environmentally friendly deep-sea mining.”

Polymetallic nodules are mineral resources that are generally deposited more than 4,000 meters deep beneath the sea’s surface and contain manganese, iron, copper, nickel, cobalt as well as rare earth elements.

During the expedition, manned deep-sea submergence was also conducted in the seamount chain and continental slope areas in the South China Sea, according to scientist Shi Xuefa.

“We plan to carry out geological and biological surveys in the region,” said Shi. “The submersible will take photos of the distribution of polymetallic nodules, deep-sea life and seafloor terrain.”

The rock samples collected from the seamount will be used in research in chronology, mineralogy and geochemistry on the South China Sea, advancing the study of the region’s structural evolution, according to Shi.

The 38th oceanic scientific expedition started on Feb. 6. Jiaolong completed a dive in the northwestern Indian Ocean earlier this year in the mission’s first stage. It will also conduct surveys in the Yap Trench and the Mariana Trench in the third stage.

Named after a mythical dragon, Jiaolong reached its deepest depth of 7,062 meters in the Mariana Trench in June 2012.