State Administration for Market Regulation: Will establish a supervision and random inspection system for standard formulation and implementation

To implement the relevant provisions of the "Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China", deepen the implementation of the "National Standardization Development Outline", strengthen the supervision of standard formulation and implementation, improve the effectiveness of standard implementation, and fully leverage the fundamental and leading role of standards, the State Administration for Market Regulation has drafted the "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Supervision of Standard Formulation and Implementation (Draft for Comments)", and is now publicly soliciting opinions from society. The public can submit opinions through the following channels and methods:

To implement the "Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China", deepen the implementation of the "National Standardization Development Outline", strengthen the supervision of standard formulation and implementation, and better play the fundamental and leading role of standardization in promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, the following opinions are proposed.

1. Overall Requirements

Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Second Plenary Session, vigorously implement the standardization strategy, accelerate the construction of a standard system that promotes high-quality development, strengthen supervision of standard formulation and implementation, optimize the governance structure of standardization, enhance the governance effectiveness of standardization, and promote the transformation of standardization development from quantity and scale to quality and efficiency, providing high-standard support for high-quality economic and social development. Strive to establish by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan a traceability, supervision, and correction mechanism covering the entire lifecycle of standard formulation and implementation, achieve closed-loop management of standard formulation, implementation, information feedback, and review and revision, effectively improve the scientificity, normativity, and timeliness of standards, fully realize the benefits of standard implementation, and significantly enhance the effectiveness of standards in leading high-quality development.

2. Key Tasks

(1) Strengthen supervision of the government-issued standard formulation process. Adhere to strengthening management through supervision, increase supervision over the formulation process of national standards, industry standards, and local standards, prevent the transfer of interests and the use of opportunities to seek unfair competitive advantages, and improve the normativity, scientificity, fairness, and timeliness of standard formulation. The administrative departments for standardization under the State Council, relevant administrative departments, and local standardization administrative departments shall, according to their statutory duties, respectively strengthen the project approval supervision of national standards, industry standards, and local standards, strictly evaluate standard projects, increase feasibility and applicability demonstrations, strengthen coordination and handling of project approval opinions and suggestions, and improve the normativity of standard project approval. Strengthen supervision of standard drafting, strictly implement the requirements for verification of standard technical requirements and test methods, strengthen solicitation and handling of opinions on draft standards, and improve the scientificity of standard drafting. Strengthen supervision of technical review of standards, improve complaint and coordination mechanisms, and ensure fairness in standard formulation. Strengthen supervision of the time progress of each stage of standard formulation, accelerate the connection between stages, and improve the timeliness of standard formulation. The administrative department for standardization under the State Council shall strengthen supervision and spot checks on the review of national standards and the numbering, review, and filing of industry and local standards. For standards that are not numbered or filed as required and refuse to rectify, relevant standard numbers shall be revoked, or relevant departments shall be ordered to announce the abolition of unfiled standards.

(2) Increase supervision of the implementation of mandatory national standards. Mandatory national standards are technical regulations that must be strictly implemented and supervised. Departments proposing mandatory national standards shall conscientiously fulfill the responsibility for publicity and promotion of mandatory national standards according to the principle of "who needs it, who proposes it" and "who organizes drafting, who promotes implementation." Departments responsible for supervision and management of mandatory national standards as stipulated by laws and regulations shall strictly fulfill the responsibilities of publicity and implementation supervision and inspection of mandatory national standards, investigate and deal with violations of mandatory national standards, and ensure the proper implementation of mandatory national standards. The administrative department for standardization shall, according to statutory duties, strengthen supervision of the public disclosure of mandatory national standard texts, assist in organizing investigations and handling of major violations such as violations of mandatory national standards, and urge relevant departments to promptly handle issues reflected in monitoring, evaluation, complaints, and reports regarding mandatory national standards. Further improve the statistical analysis and reporting system for the implementation of mandatory national standards, regularly carry out statistical analysis of the implementation of mandatory national standards, and publish statistical analysis reports on the implementation of mandatory national standards.

(3) Promote the publicity and promotion of recommended standards. The administrative department for standardization under the State Council shall strengthen supervision and inspection of the public disclosure of national standards, industry standards, and local standards, and ensure that standard implementation entities timely obtain relevant standard information under the premise of copyright compliance. Urge local standardization administrative departments, relevant administrative departments, industry associations, and standardization technical committees to organize publicity and promotion of national standards, industry standards, and local standards according to statutory duties, promote the use of government procurement, bidding, certification and accreditation, inspection and testing, and other means to facilitate standard implementation. Strengthen supervision of standardization pilot demonstrations, focus on solving the problem of "emphasizing application but neglecting construction," and improve the quality and effectiveness of pilot demonstration projects. Pay attention to tracing problems in standard formulation through supervision of standard implementation, and timely improve and optimize standard formulation work. Market supervision departments shall strengthen supervision and inspection of behaviors that hinder the free flow of goods and factors and affect fair market competition by using industry standards and local standards, and promote the construction of a unified national market.

(4) Strengthen supervision of market-driven standard formulation and implementation behaviors. Promote the implementation of self-declaration disclosure and supervision systems for group standards and enterprise standards, optimize the supervision and spot-check work mechanism for group standards and enterprise standards, and strengthen the construction of public service platforms for group standards and enterprise standards. The administrative department for standardization actively investigates illegal activities such as infringement of intellectual property rights and improper charges using the right of authorship during the formulation and implementation of group standards through supervision and reporting clues, and publicly announces the illegal acts and handling results of group standard organizations through the national group standards information platform. Encourage enterprises to disclose the standards they implement on the enterprise standards information public service platform. For enterprises that fail to disclose their implemented standards as required, urge them to make corrections within a time limit; those who fail to correct within the time limit will be publicly listed on the enterprise standards information public service platform. For enterprises that have disclosed their implemented standards, their products and services should meet the technical requirements of the disclosed standards. Those that do not meet the standards will be supervised and managed by market regulation and other relevant departments according to their legal responsibilities. Strengthen supervision of the "leader" enterprises in enterprise standards, and investigate and deal with acts of falsely claiming the title of enterprise standard "leader" or products and services not meeting the publicly disclosed leading standards in accordance with the law.

(5) Strengthen the normative guidance for domestic technical counterpart units of international standard organizations' technical bodies. The administrative department for standardization under the State Council establishes a comprehensive assessment indicator system combining binding, performance, and incentive elements, and strengthens the assessment and evaluation of domestic technical counterpart units (referred to as counterpart units) of international standard organizations' technical bodies. Supervise the implementation of counterpart units' responsibilities such as forming domestic technical counterpart working groups, organizing the drafting of international standard voting opinions, international standard voting rates, identification of important international standards, and widely soliciting expert participation in international standard formulation. Supervise counterpart units' efficiency in reviewing and approving international standard proposals and organizing Chinese delegations to participate in international meetings, improving the normative operation of counterpart units.

(6) Strengthen the follow-up work of supervision after standard formulation and implementation. The administrative department for standardization under the State Council, relevant administrative departments, and local standardization administrative departments increase efforts to address issues found during supervision of standard formulation and implementation, such as outdated, lagging, overlapping, or excessively broad standards. For recommended national standards, industry standards, and local standards that no longer meet economic and social development needs and technological progress, violate current laws, regulations, rules, industrial policies, or have technical requirements lower than mandatory national standards, timely revise or abolish them. Strengthen coordination and communication to promote the revision and adjustment of overlapping standards and improve the coordination and compatibility of standards. Organize supervision and spot checks on standards formulated beyond their scope and revise or abolish them promptly. Group standards involving national security and public safety should seek opinions from relevant competent departments; those not approved will be abolished and publicly announced by the relevant competent departments in consultation with the administrative department for standardization.

3. Work Measures

(7) Establish a supervision and spot-check system for standard formulation and implementation. The administrative department for standardization establishes a supervision and spot-check system covering the entire process of standard formulation and implementation, formulates annual spot-check plans, and organizes supervision and spot checks on standardization technical committees, group standard organizations, standard review institutions, domestic technical counterpart units of international standard organizations, standardization pilot demonstration project units, enterprises, and other units related to standard formulation and implementation, including relevant materials, website content, and standard texts. According to the needs of supervision and spot checks, technical requirements related to standards may be verified. Encourage the use of national standard verification points to conduct technical verification during supervision and spot checks. In fields without national standard verification points, rely on national product quality inspection and testing centers or other accredited and recognized inspection and testing institutions to carry out technical verification.

(8) Accelerate the construction of a national standard implementation monitoring network. The administrative department for standardization under the State Council organizes nationwide standard implementation monitoring, focusing on standard research institutions, inspection and testing institutions, certification bodies, and units undertaking standardization pilot demonstration projects. It builds a number of standard implementation monitoring points to form a national standard implementation monitoring network, regularly collects standard implementation data, analyzes the status of standard implementation, and provides data support for standard supervision. Explore monitoring and analysis of the effective implementation rates of national standards, industry standards, local standards, and group standards, publish reports on the implementation status of various standards, and promote the management of all types of standards. Regularly monitor the implementation of standards in key areas around major national deployments, promptly identify problems in the standard implementation process, and provide a basis for advancing related work.

(9) Strengthen feedback on standard implementation information. Improve the national standard implementation information feedback mechanism, establish feedback channels for industry standards, local standards, and others, widely collect information, opinions, and suggestions on standard implementation, and promote communication between standard implementers and standard formulators. Establish information-sharing channels between the administrative department for standardization and law enforcement and regulatory departments to promptly feedback standard issues found during law enforcement and supervision to the standard formulation units. Improve the problem handling system for standard implementation feedback, strengthen supervision of the handling and response to feedback information, and enhance satisfaction with the handling of standard implementation feedback by urging and notifying cases where feedback problems are not handled or replied to.

(10) Solidly carry out evaluation of standard implementation effects. Further establish and improve the evaluation mechanism for standard implementation effects. The administrative department for standardization under the State Council, relevant administrative departments, and local standardization administrative departments organize evaluations of the implementation effects of national standards, industry standards, and local standards to timely grasp the status of standard implementation. Standardization technical committees at all levels conduct implementation effect evaluations for the standards under their jurisdiction. Group standard organizations evaluate the implementation effects of the group standards they issue and apply the evaluation results to standard review and revision work. Encourage regions, enterprises, and units undertaking standardization pilot demonstration projects with conditions to conduct evaluations of standard implementation effects, support third-party evaluations of standard implementation effects, and promote related standard implementation and improvement. Organize the promotion of exemplary cases of standard implementation effect evaluation, launch a batch of typical examples of standard implementation, summarize a batch of evaluation methods for standard implementation effects, and cultivate a group of institutions for evaluating standard implementation effects. Explore establishing general rules and evaluation method systems for standard implementation effect evaluation, promoting normalization, standardization, and scientific evaluation work.

4. Organizational Guarantee

(11) Strengthen overall coordination of supervision work for standard formulation and implementation. The administrative department for standardization under the State Council coordinates nationwide supervision work for standard formulation and implementation, organizes supervision and inspection of national standard formulation and promotion work, conducts supervision and spot checks on industry standards and local standards, and organizes supervision of group standards and enterprise standards formulation and implementation. Relevant administrative departments of the State Council manage supervision of industry standard formulation in their respective fields and supervise and inspect the promotion of national and industry standards in their fields. Local standardization administrative departments carry out supervision and inspection of enterprise standards self-declaration disclosure according to territorial management principles, supervise the promotion of national standards in their jurisdictions, and, together with relevant local administrative departments, are responsible for supervision of local standard formulation and implementation, strengthening supervision and management of group standards and enterprise standards formulation and implementation in their jurisdictions.

(12) Widely mobilize social forces to participate in supervision of standard formulation and implementation. Optimize the complaint and reporting functions of the national standards information public service platform and conduct supervision investigations based on complaints and reports. Encourage localities and departments to explore establishing a standard social supervisor system, build a team of standard social supervisors, and provide information, technical, and consulting support for standard supervision. Fully utilize the supervision role of news media, social organizations, and consumers on standard implementation, and encourage third-party evaluations of standard formulation satisfaction and standard implementation effectiveness.

(13) Continuously strengthen the self-supervision of market autonomous standard-setting entities. Group standard organizations strengthen self-supervision of the advancement of standard content and procedural compliance. Enterprises enhance self-declaration, public self-inspection, and self-correction of standards, strictly implementing public standards. Relevant entities are encouraged to report self-supervision situations to the relevant competent authorities and accept guidance from these authorities.

All regions and relevant departments should regard strengthening supervision of standard formulation and implementation as an important measure to implement the "Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China" and the "National Standardization Development Outline." They should strengthen organizational leadership, overall coordination, and publicity guidance, incorporate standard formulation and implementation supervision into the quality work assessment system, and ensure funding for standard implementation and supervision according to law. Based on local and departmental actual conditions, they should explore and improve standard supervision methods and tools, clarify work priorities, refine work measures, and ensure effective results.