The General Office of the Ministry of Transport ("MOT") has recently issued the Administrative Measures for the Construction Quality of Rural Roads (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") and the Action Plan for Enhancing the Durability of Construction Quality of Rural Roads (2018-2020) (Draft for Comment) to seek opinions from the entities concerned by August 27, 2018.
The Draft for Comment expressly states that, construction projects of rural roads will be subject to the lifelong responsibility system for the project quality. Project developers, design entities, construction entities, supervision entities, testing and inspection entities shall designate the corresponding project heads and the quality heads, and have such heads bear the corresponding quality responsibility within the reasonable service life of a project in accordance with state laws and regulations and applicable provisions. Furthermore, the Draft for Comment proposes to actively promote such models as the consignment system and the general contracting for design and construction, reinforce the professionalized management of construction projects of rural roads, advocate the construction mode featuring the integration of construction and maintenance, and improve the full lifecycle quality management of rural roads.