The General Office of the Ministry of Water Resources ("MWR") has recently prepared and issued the 2019 Key Tasks on the Construction of Water Conservancy Projects (the "Key Tasks").
The Key Tasks include "accelerating the building of key water conservancy projects", "eliminating dangers and reinforcing the structure for weak and dangerous water reservoirs and strengthening the cleanup of medium and small rivers", "enhancing administration of the construction of water conservancy projects", "proceeding with modernizing the construction of water conservancy projects", "tightening the market regulation of the water conservancy construction", etc. Among others, the Key Tasks make it clear that actions will be taken to rigorously monitor engineering quality, step up the whole-process quality control covering the survey, design and construction processes, keep a rein on quality-related practices, take quality inspections and assessment and acceptance inspections seriously, innovate regulatory measures and means, and strictly pursue quality liabilities. Moreover, the Key Tasks call for stepping up the quality supervision, assigning concrete responsibilities for engineering quality to all parties engaged in the construction, strictly operating the lifelong accountability system for engineering quality, and optimizing the engineering quality assurance system that integrate enterprises' responsibilities, government surveillance and public oversight. Furthermore, the construction administrative system reform will be deepened via improving the accountability system for project-oriented legal persons, regulating the establishment of project-oriented legal persons and enhancing the capacity of project-oriented legal persons to fulfill their duties.