State Council, Reform Plan for Intensifying Standardisation

Issued: March 11 2015

Main contents: The Plan proposes a change, through reform, from the current standards regime in which the government is the sole provider of standards to a new standards regime jointly constituted of standards the formulation of which is guided by the government and those that are formulated by the market at its own initiative. The standards formulated under the guidance of the government are to be integrated and reduced from six types to four types, namely mandatory state standards, recommended state standards, recommended industry standards and recommended local standards. Standards formulated by the market at its own initiative are divided into association standards and enterprise standards. The standards formulated under the guidance of the government mainly aim to maintain a baseline whereas those formulated by the market at its own initiative mainly focus on enhancing competitiveness.

The Plan proposes that current mandatory state standards, industry standards and local standards are to be gradually integrated as mandatory state standards. In terms of the scope of the standards, mandatory state standards will be strictly restricted to protecting the safety of human health, life and property, national security and ecological environment safety, and satisfying the basic requirements of social and economic administration.

The Plan proposes the establishment of a system of self-declaration, self-disclosure and monitoring of enterprise product and service standards, the gradual abolition of the administration by the government of enterprise product standards through record filing and the implementation of enterprise standardisation entity liability. Professional standardisation institutions are encouraged to carry out the comparison and assessment of the standards disclosed by enterprises to strengthen public scrutiny (Article 3).