Notice from the National Certification and Accreditation Administration on Issuing the "Action Plan for Strengthening Enterprises, Supply Chains, and Counties through Quality Certification Services (2024–2026)"

Guo Ren Jian [2024] No. 11

Market Supervision Bureaus (Departments, Commissions) of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and all relevant units:

The "Action Plan for Strengthening Enterprises, Chains, and Counties through Quality Certification Services (2024-2026)" is hereby issued to you. Please implement it effectively according to actual conditions.

National Certification and Accreditation Administration

Action Plan for Strengthening Enterprises, Chains, and Counties through Quality Certification Services

September 29, 2024

(This document is publicly released)

(2024-2026)

I. Overall Requirements

Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the second and third plenary sessions of the 20th Central Committee. Fully, accurately, and comprehensively implement the new development philosophy in market supervision work. Based on the essential attributes of quality certification as "conveying trust and serving development," focus on the high-quality development needs of enterprises, industries, and counties. Better leverage the roles of quality certification as a "letter of credit," "health certificate," and "pass" to implement the action of strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties through quality certification services, promote enterprises to grow bigger and stronger, build and strengthen industrial chains, and achieve sustainable development of county economies, highlighting the contemporary value of quality certification in shaping and strengthening new quality productive forces and advancing Chinese-style modernization.

II. Work Objectives

Comprehensively improve the supply level of quality certification services. Significantly enhance the ability of quality certification to improve market supply, serve market supervision, optimize the market environment, and promote market opening, fully reflecting the fundamental role of quality certification in promoting the strengthening of enterprises, chains, and counties.

Closely align with enterprise needs, focusing on common quality issues generally faced by small and micro enterprises in "seeking survival and development," effectively enhancing quality certification's support for small and micro enterprises to improve quality, reduce costs, and increase efficiency. Focus on quality development "pain points" faced by medium and large enterprises in "seeking transformation, creating brands, and promoting development," effectively improving the effectiveness of quality certification in promoting high-quality development of medium and large enterprises.

Closely align with the needs of industrial and supply chains, centering on major national strategic deployments, focusing on bottlenecks, difficulties, and pain points in high-quality industrial development, selecting and implementing a batch of major tasks for quality certification services to strengthen chains. Fully unleash the effectiveness of quality certification services, achieving a number of major landmark results in building a modern industrial system that is safe, reliable, highly competitive, and with significant brand influence.

Closely align with the development needs of counties (cities, districts), promoting counties (cities, districts) to base themselves on their positioning and resource advantages, deeply implement the action of strengthening counties through quality certification services, focus on enhancing new competitive advantages for regional high-quality development, and promote a batch of quality certification strong counties (cities, districts) to stand out.

Closely align with the high-quality development needs of regionally characteristic advantageous industries, explore and innovate integrated service paths for strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties through quality certification, and establish an integrated innovative model for quality certification services for strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties according to the system thinking of "connecting points with lines, leading areas with lines, and coordinated development of points, lines, and areas."

III. Basic Principles

— Serve the overall national strategic situation. Implement the strategic deployment of strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, closely follow the requirements of the "Outline for Building a Quality Power" and the "National Standardization Development Outline" for quality certification work, implement the General Administration's arrangements for strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties through quality work, and use quality certification as a means to promote enterprises to improve quality and efficiency, support industrial cluster and chain strengthening, and support high-quality county development.

— Based on the essential attributes of quality certification. Based on the essential attributes of "conveying trust and serving development," highlight typical market-oriented and international characteristics, play the roles of market "letter of credit," quality "health certificate," and trade "pass," providing fundamental, institutional, and technical support and guarantees for strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties.

— Play a demonstrative and leading role. Strengthen enterprises by highlighting common characteristics and promoting advanced enterprise quality management experiences; strengthen chains by emphasizing the role of chain leaders to drive overall industrial chain improvement; strengthen counties based on county characteristics and establish quality certification strong county benchmarks. Fully play the leading role of demonstration, exchange and promote advanced experiences and typical practices, promote the in-depth development of quality certification services for strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties, and form a batch of landmark achievements in quality certification services for strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties.

— Overall planning and systematic promotion. Benchmark against international advanced levels, follow the development laws of enterprises, industries, and counties, and the laws of quality certification services. Plan the strengthening of enterprises, chains, and counties as a whole, focus on micro, meso, and macro systematic promotion, integrate quality certification services throughout the entire process of high-quality development of enterprises, industries, and counties, and achieve integrated and coordinated development of quality certification with enterprise, industry, and county development.

IV. Key Tasks

(1) Improve the supply level of quality certification services for strengthening enterprises, chains, and counties

1. Support the construction of a unified national market. Centered on building an efficient, standardized, fair, competitive, and fully open unified national market, accelerate the construction of a quality certification system with unified management, joint implementation, authoritative credibility, and mutual recognition. Improve the legal and regulatory system for quality certification, revise the "Regulations on Certification and Accreditation of the People's Republic of China." Strengthen the credibility of the quality certification industry, improve the professional level of quality certification, and cultivate a batch of authoritative and credible quality certification service organizations. Improve the national unified quality certification system, establish a nationwide unified quality certification acceptance mechanism, guide third-party technical evaluation activities oriented to society to gradually shift to the national unified quality certification system, promote the elimination of regional market barriers, and facilitate market-oriented allocation of factors and resources.

2. Optimize the supply of quality certification systems. Improve the compulsory product certification system (hereinafter referred to as CCC certification), fully play the role of CCC certification in ensuring safety baseline, dynamically adjust the CCC certification catalog according to risk levels. Implement key supervision in high-risk areas of CCC certification, strengthen supervision and inspection of designated institutions, and continuously strengthen random checks on the effectiveness of CCC certification. Optimize and adjust the voluntary certification system, focusing on major equipment, basic materials, integrated circuits, green and low-carbon, cybersecurity, and other fields, encourage the development of high-end quality certifications with large market demand, serving people's livelihood and significant quality improvement effects. Improve the food and agricultural product certification system, widely carry out quality management system certification upgrade actions, deeply promote service certification, and increase the supply of high-quality products and services. Accelerate the implementation of a unified green product certification and labeling system, build a product carbon label certification system, and coordinate the use of product, service, and management system certifications to serve the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals.

3. Promote integrated development of domestic and foreign trade. Promote interoperability of quality certification between domestic and foreign trade, encourage international development of third-party certification bodies, and provide integrated conformity assessment services for domestic and foreign trade. Improve the promotion and implementation mechanism that integrates domestic and foreign trade, connects vertically and horizontally, coordinates departments, and matches supply and demand, support enterprises' integrated development of domestic and foreign trade, and expand consumer demand. Encourage certification practitioners to carry out quality evaluation and technical assistance, maintain product quality brand reputation. Strengthen quality certification technical services for cross-border e-commerce, and improve the quality and safety level of import and export goods.

(2) Quality Certification Services Strengthen Enterprises

1. Serving enterprise quality improvement. Aiming to support high-quality development of enterprises, implement enterprise quality certification enhancement actions classified according to the needs for improving product and service quality. Focus on the survival and development needs of small and micro enterprises, continuously and deeply carry out the "Small and Micro Enterprise Quality Management System Certification Enhancement Action," guiding leading enterprises in the industrial chain to include upstream and downstream small and micro enterprises in a joint quality management system, improving the quality management capabilities of small and micro enterprises, and promoting the extension of advanced quality concepts and quality management models to both ends of the industrial chain. Focus on the transformation and upgrading needs of medium and large enterprises, encourage and guide enterprises to collaboratively carry out digital upgrades of quality management and quality management system certification, encourage large enterprises, associations, and industrial alliances to participate in the development of product, service, and system certification systems. Encourage platform enterprises to strengthen compliance operations, quality control, and platform services through quality certification, enhance certification training for enterprise management, chief quality officers, quality managers, engineers, etc., and select a batch of benchmark enterprises for quality certification.

2. Serving enterprise credit enhancement. Strengthen publicity and guidance, highlight the essential attribute of quality certification as "transmitting trust," and promote the shift in enterprise quality certification concepts from focusing solely on quality improvement to emphasizing both quality improvement and trust transmission. Focus on enterprise brand building and development needs, encourage enterprises to implement quality brand strategies, guide various enterprises to improve quality management levels, encourage enterprises to obtain high-end quality certification, and promote enterprise brand value enhancement through certification to assist high-quality transformation and development. Focus on enterprises' "going global" needs, encourage enterprises to actively participate in certification internationalization, guide certification bodies, industry associations, and industrial alliances to serve enterprises in obtaining overseas certification, and explore innovative models for enterprises' products, services, technologies, and brands "going global" driven by quality certification.

3. Serving enterprise trade promotion. Promote integrated development of domestic and foreign trade for enterprises, organize the establishment of a comprehensive policy and professional technical service mechanism including standards, third-party evaluation, and quality control, providing business training and technical services for enterprises to expand international markets. Strengthen enterprise certification information service guarantees, improve the information platform for trade facilitation of conformity assessment services, guide certification bodies, consulting agencies, industry associations, and data service providers to carry out integrated certification information consulting services, and encourage local governments, market supervision departments, and large enterprises with conditions and willingness to build quality certification information platforms. Improve the service level for enterprises regarding technical trade measures, support enterprises in participating in notification, evaluation, research, and early warning of technical trade measures.

(3) Quality Certification Services Strengthen Chains

1. Enhance the resilience of industrial and supply chains. Combining national major strategies and local industrial development needs, focus on one hundred key quality strengthening projects nationwide, select and determine key industrial and supply chains for quality certification enhancement, conduct research to understand the full chain upstream and downstream structure, regional distribution, enterprise composition, and other situations. Organize expert diagnosis and analysis, strengthen big data analysis, identify and analyze pain points, difficulties, and bottlenecks from aspects such as industrial technology, quality management, market credit, and international trade, form problem lists by level and category, and draw quality certification maps. Formulate quality certification enhancement plans with "one chain, one policy," create key task lists for breakthroughs and quality policy tool lists, determine chain leader units, chain master enterprises, chain members, and certification bodies, and clarify goals, paths, and measures for quality certification enhancement. Focus on implementing a batch of quality certification service strong chain breakthrough tasks such as "domestic automotive chip industrialization application and quality improvement," breaking through industrial technology bottlenecks.

2. Support collaborative quality upgrades across the entire chain. Improve a conformity assessment system covering the entire chain, full process, and full lifecycle, apply internationally advanced quality standards and methods, and promote deep integration of quality certification with industrial chains in key fields such as aviation, railways, urban rail transit, automobiles, construction, information technology, and environmental protection. Promote new management system certifications such as supply chain security management systems, business continuity management systems, and compliance management systems, strengthening consistent quality control of industrial and supply chains. Optimize certification service models and industrial layouts, providing integrated services for upstream and downstream of industrial and supply chains. Support chain master enterprises to include quality certification collaboration in industrial chain collaboration platform support content, deepen data connectivity, sharing, and development utilization of quality certification throughout the entire process and chain.

3. Help cultivate and expand industrial clusters. Relying on national-level new areas, national high-tech industrial development zones, free trade pilot zones, and others, build sources of quality technology and quality management innovation, cultivate and form quality excellence industrial clusters with leadership. Establish a batch of industrial cluster quality certification innovation cooperation platforms to innovate technology research and development; promote cross-regional division of labor and cooperation in industrial and supply chains, encourage regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing dual-city economic circle, and Yangtze River Economic Belt to innovate regional quality certification cooperation and mutual assistance mechanisms, deepen collaborative construction and application of quality infrastructure, and promote cross-regional co-construction and sharing of quality certification resources.

(4) Quality Certification Service for Strong Counties

1. Promote quality and efficiency-oriented development of county economies. Encourage local governments to strengthen policy guidance on quality certification, formulate measures to optimize quality certification services for county economic development, and promote the integration of county quality certification services with productivity layout, location advantages, environmental carrying capacity, and social development needs. Continuously enhance quality certification awareness, pursue high quality, and continuously improve the quality and efficiency of county development. Regard enhancing innovation momentum in quality certification as an important driving force for county quality development and optimizing the business environment. Establish a deeply integrated quality certification innovation system involving government, industry, academia, research, and application. Local market supervision departments, certification bodies, and industry associations should focus on key links and priority areas to improve quality assurance and competitiveness, continuously enhancing the level of quality certification services. Guide localities to standardize the use of certification methods to promote regional brand building.

2. Consolidate county quality infrastructure. Using quality certification as a guide, build a coordinated, collaborative, efficient, and comprehensive quality infrastructure integrated service system. Promote coordination, interaction, collaborative innovation, and integrated development among quality certification, inspection and testing, metrology, standards, and quality management elements. Actively develop quality certification service bases and integrated quality infrastructure service bases, supporting quality infrastructure service platforms and institutions to provide conformity assessment services. Strengthen the positive role of certification in promoting the broad application and continuous improvement of other quality infrastructure elements, facilitating interconnection and high-quality development of quality infrastructure.

3. Serve the rural revitalization cause. Strengthen research on quality certification services for rural revitalization, carry out strategic work on quality certification services for rural revitalization, explore establishing a "high-standard market + high-quality production area" linkage model using quality certification as a means, benchmark against high-end market demand, cultivate regional high-end quality brands through certification evaluation, improve the production and marketing docking mechanism for high-quality agricultural and sideline products, and promote high-quality rural revitalization development. Encourage certification bodies to provide precise certification services for agricultural industrial parks, agricultural production and operation enterprises, agricultural cooperatives, and farmers, strengthening technical support for rural revitalization. Implement the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," use quality certification to serve county green transformation and development, improve quality certification services in rural infrastructure, public services, living environment, and explore establishing a third-party evaluation system for beautiful villages.

(5) Strengthen the integrated construction of quality certification services for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties

Select a batch of counties (cities, districts) with conditions and willingness to explore and carry out pilot projects for innovative integrated services of quality certification for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties. Based on the key and characteristic industrial foundations and development needs of counties (cities, districts), organically integrate the common certification service demands of strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties, innovatively establish an integrated service model for quality certification services for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties, and achieve coordinated improvement of strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties. Focus on cultivating strategic emerging industries and future industries, accelerate the formation of new quality productivity, implement coordinated assistance for quality certification services for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties, and form a batch of replicable and promotable typical cases. Support localities to establish comprehensive quality certification service stations around the needs of strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties services and promoting new quality productivity development, improving the efficiency of integrated services for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties.

5. Organizational Guarantee

(1) Strengthen organizational leadership. Unified deployment, careful organization, focus on effectiveness, effectively play the essential role of quality certification in "transmitting trust and serving development," and form a long-term mechanism to promote the action of quality certification services for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties.

(2) Improve service efficiency. Strengthen the coordinated construction and collaborative services of quality elements such as quality certification, metrology, standards, and inspection and testing. Explore new mechanisms and models for quality certification services for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties. Promote the open sharing of quality certification technical resources, realize convenient and efficient quality certification technical services, and improve the service level of quality certification for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties.

(3) Strengthen publicity and guidance. Take advantage of activities such as "Quality Month" and "World Accreditation Day" to popularize quality certification knowledge, spread advanced quality certification concepts, strengthen typical demonstration promotion and publicity, innovate publicity forms, enrich publicity carriers, create publicity resonance, and foster a good atmosphere for quality certification services for strong enterprises, strong chains, and strong counties.