The General Office of the Ministry of Natural Resources ("MNR") has recently issued the Circular on Matters Concerning Centralized Rectification of Work Safety Problems (the "Circular").
The Circular requires that under the centralized leadership of the local people's governments and in line with the requirements set out in the document (An Wei Ming Dian [2019] No.3), local authorities of natural resources at all levels shall, in collaboration with the related authorities, make sound preparations for the key tasks of the rectification, and seriously investigate and deal with certain unlawful acts, such as the inconsistency between the planning for a chemical industrial park and the overall planning of the local region and mining beyond the approved mining areas. They are also required to cooperate with the related authorities on the checks of high-risk coal mines with coal and gas outburst, rock bursts, and serious water hazards or mining depth exceeding thousands of meters, and urge and instruct enterprises to step up their efforts at detecting and eliminating hidden dangers. Meanwhile, the Circular reads that with regard to failure to rectify the practices of mining beyond the approved mining areas, unlicensed prospecting and mining, etc. the authorities shall implement the "blacklist" system for producers and operators with bad work safety records and the measures for publicity and publication of information on prospection and exploitation of mining right holders, to blacklist the dishonest enterprises and impose joint punishments.