The Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM") has recently issued the revised Statistical Survey System for Drug Circulation (the "System") which has taken effect from January 2019 as approved by the National Bureau of Statistics ("NBS") and will remain valid for three years.
The System revises and details the setting and the explanation of indicators respectively used in reports prepared for three different business forms, namely the drug retails, medicine logistics and medicine e-commerce, and adjusts the structure of such reports. Specifically, the modifications are introduced to the Overview, Catalog of Questionnaires, Questionnaire Templates, and Interpretations of Key Indicators. Among others, the System adds a subsection entitled "7. Quality Control for Surveys" into the Overview. In the Catalog of Questionnaires, requirements for when and how to submit the Questionnaire YPLT-3 on "Retail Business Performance of Drug Circulation Enterprises are revised to read that "the annual report and the semi-annual report shall be directly submitted online by March 31 of the next year and within 20 days after the end of the second quarter respectively". The Questionnaire YPLE-4 is renamed as "Basic Information on Business Operations of Medicine Logistics Distribution Enterprises", instead of the previous "Basic Information on Logistics Distribution of Drug Wholesalers and Retailers "; and requirements for when and how to submit this questionnaire are revised in the same way to read that "the annual report and the semi-annual report shall be directly submitted online by March 31 of the next year and within 20 days after the end of the second quarter respectively".