The Ministry of Ecology and Environment ("MEE") has recently issued the Opinions on Further Deepening Regulatory Services of Ecology and Environment and Spurring High-quality Economic Development (the "Opinions").
The Opinions lay out 20 opinions in five respects which are delegating powers to a larger extent to vitalize market players; optimizing regulatory approaches to create a level playing field; enhancing practical effects of government services and boosting enterprises' capacity for green development; rolling out targeted measures for environmental cleanup to raise the level of ecology and environment administration; and strengthening responsibility bearing and making improvement to the safeguard mechanism. With regard to efforts to vitalize market players, the Opinions call for: 1. improving the market access mechanism by further sorting out the market access lists for the ecology and environment sector and banning any other threshold requirements or implicit restrictions other than such lists; 2. shortening the list of administrative approval items through constantly advancing the program of cancelling certification items for the convenience of the people and further cutting unnecessary application documents for administrative approval, and combining together three inspections on on-road transportation vehicles, i.e. annual reviews, annual inspections and vehicle emission inspections, into one; and 3. deepening the reform of examination and approval for environmental impact assessment by optimizing the classification of environmental impact assessment and promoting the environmental impact assessment registration form filing mechanism.