A Shanghai lawyer made a formal request with the Ministry of Finance this week to make public the detailed expenditure of the country's four-trillion-yuan fiscal stimulus package (585.5 billion U.S. dollars).
Yan Yiming, a lawyer specializing in securities case and owning a law firm named after himself, said he was dissatisfied with the ministry's previous response to his request which said it was improper to have the information released.
The current formal request made this week, an 'administrative reconsideration', must get a reply from the ministry within 15 days, according to the Chinese law.
Yan submitted his previous request to the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, on Jan. 7. According to Yan, The MOF reply came less than two weeks later but the NDRC remained silent.
The Ministry of Finance said in a written reply that the plan details should be released after it was approved by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.
"There is no state secret in the stimulus plan, then why not make it public for better supervision?" Yan said.
Here's a Bloomberg interview with Yan Yiming.
Recall that Bloomberg sued the Federal Reserve over its secretive lending practices and they were rebuffed.
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