Recently, the General Office of the Ministry of Environmental Protection ("MEP") has issued the Technical Guidelines for Assuring and Controlling the Quality of Investigations into Land to be Used by Enterprises in Key Sectors (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to solicit comments from the entities concerned by September 15, 2017.
The Draft for Comment contains fundamental requirements on the quality management throughout investigations into land to be utilized by enterprises in core industries and the careful scrutiny of nationwide soil pollution status, and applies to the quality assurance and control for certain processes involved in investigations into land to be used by enterprises operating in core fields, including the information collection, distribution of sampling points, collection, storage and circulation of samples, analysis and testing of samples, reports on analysis and testing results, risk screening, and risk rating. In particular, the Draft for Comment stipulates that professional agencies shall be entrusted to undertake the activities relating to the investigations into land to be used by enterprises. The entrusted professional agencies shall establish and improve their quality examination systems, and work out and put in practice internal quality control programs, in order to strictly implement quality control measures throughout the whole process.