The National Development and Reform Commission ("NDRC") has recently issued the Guidelines for the National Catalog for Public Resource Trading (the "Guidelines"), immediately effective from the date of issuance.
The Guidelines call for expanding the coverage of public resource trading platforms at a more rapid pace, gradually from biding and tendering for engineering construction projects, granting of land use right and mining right, trading of state-owned property rights, and government procurement, to cover some other types of public resources, including natural resources, which it is suitable to be distributed in a market-based manner. And then the Guidelines enumerate 16 items in nine categories, including international bid invitation for mechanical and electrical products, ocean resource trading, and forest right trading, regarding other types of public resource transactions that will be covered, such as natural resources, assets and equities, and environmental rights. Furthermore, all regions are required to, in the light of local actual situations and on the basis of the Guidelines, formulate and issue their respective list of catalogs of public resource transactions for the local region as soon as possible. They are also urged to pursue electronization, regulate on-the-spot service items, promote online processing, optimize platform services, and continually make the distribution of public resources more efficient and fairer.