Under the guidance of the policy of promoting socialist democracy and building a sound socialist legal system formulated at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the Na-tional People's Congress and its Standing Committee have, since 1979, enacted many important laws. These laws have been compiled and published in succes-sion by the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. In order to acquaint readers abroad with China's laws and with what China has achieved in building a new legal system, the collections in Chinese entitled the Laws of the People's Republic of China, covering the period of 1979 -2005, have been translated into English and published in sixteen volumes at the Foreign Languages Press, the Science Press, and the Law Press respectively.We are now publishing, as Volume 18, the English edition of The Laws of the People's Republic of China (2006) at the Law Press. The publication note in the Chinese edition is not included.