Five government departments in Shenzhen have issued white papers on the targets they want to achieve this year, as part of a broader plan of the city government to enhance accountability.

Chinese-language newspapers yesterday published abstracts of the annual white papers, the first to be issued by government departments in Shenzhen. The full texts are available on the Web sites of the bureaus.

The issuing bureaus are the food and drug administration, the environmental protection bureau, the urban administration, the communications bureau and the police. At the end of the year, they will compare their accomplishments with these targets. The public will then be invited to review the performance of each department.

Yang Hong, director general of the Shenzhen Municipal Supervision Bureau, said the white papers will help define the responsibilities of each department more clearly, and help build a more open, transparent, accountable, efficient and clean government.

The urban administration bureau sets constructing 50 community parks as one of its goals this year, while the communications bureau says 35 new bus routes will open by the end of 2006. The environmental protection bureau promises to take measures to ensure the air quality of at least 95 percent of days this year reaches A and B of a national five-level index.

The public security bureau promises to launch a residence permit by the end of the year to provide better service for residents not holding the hukou, or registered permanent residence permit. The food and drug watchdog aims to reduce the occurrence of excessive pesticide residue in vegetables by 9 percent.

The city's lawmakers and political advisers will be invited to inspect whether the bureaus achieved the tasks spelled out in the white papers.

(Shenzhen Daily March 30, 2006)