The General Office of the Ministry of Transport ("MOT") has recently issued the Guiding Opinions on Strengthening Supervision and Administration of Quality Safety of Highway and Waterway Projects (the "Opinions").
The Opinions make arrangements in six respects, including "implementing responsibilities in the supervision and administration of quality" and "improving related laws, rules and standards". The Opinions call for stepping up the credit administration of engineering projects, stating that the credit administration system for engineering projects could be optimized based on the industry's credit administration framework for highway and waterway projects. Also, efforts shall be made to regulate the collection, update, publication and management of information about the credit ratings of entities engaged in constructing these projects, optimize credit records of engineering projects, promote the sharing of credit information, and incorporate relevant credit information into the transport credit information sharing platform. Further, the Opinions expressly state that possible regulatory approaches will be explored for franchised projects. Administrative requirements shall be detailed for PPP projects, in consideration of the particular relations between project companies for PPP projects and construction companies for this purpose, such as the franchise; competent authorities or related entities could monitor projects' quality by accepting government-authorized project implementing agencies, selecting project supervisors or central laboratory testing and inspection services through tender offers, or otherwise.