The Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress has deliberated a draft amendment to the State secrets law.

The draft makes clear that state secrets should be protected and that any act threatening the security of a state secret must be punished by law.

A time limit for keeping state secret has been added to the amendment -- no more than 30 years for top-level secrets, no more than 20 years for low-level state secrets, and less than 10 years for ordinary state secrets.

Ni Yuefeng, Member of NPC Standing Committee, said, "Generally speaking, there are too many confidential documents without unanimous standards. For example, the document I am holding is a confidential one. But we can't find the date of expire for its secrecy. This might lead to some trouble in keeping it a secret while the content is no longer a secret."

The amendment aims to boost awareness of the importance of safeguarding state secrets, and takes into consideration that the original range of state secrets was too wide and vague.

The amendment also stipulates that secrets fall under three classifications: state, work and commercial.

(CCTV February 26, 2010)