The First Two Shanghai FOI Annual Reports: What Do They Tell Us?

On May 1 2004, Shanghai Municipal Provisions on Open Government Information (the Provisions) took into effect. According to Article 30 in the Provisions, an annual report should be publicized before March 31 each year. So, two annual reports have been published by Shanghai Municipality till now. The first annual report recorded the implementation details for the Provision from May 1 to December 31 2004 rather than a whole year for the effective date is May 1. The second annual report covers all of 2005. After reviewing the two annual reports, we can find that Shanghai government carried out many meaningful and creative measures to promote the enforcement of Provisions. A practical working mechanism has been established for enforcing the Provisions. Several legislation and norms have been adopted to accompany with the effective implementation of the Provisions. Various useful activities have been undertaken to improve public awareness and Freedom of Information (FOI) officials have been trained for four times. The work of proactive disclosure goes further and the requests for government information have been increased steadily. #