Lately, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine ("AQSIQ") has issued the Provisions on the Procedures for the Formulation of Rules of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (the "Provisions"), effective from December 1, 2017.
According to the Provisions, the procedures for the formulation of rules should be made public and transparent. In the absence of basis of laws or from administrative measures, decisions and orders of the State Council, the rules shall not contain any provisions that intend to reduce or damage rights of citizens, legal persons or other kinds of organizations or impose new obligations on them, or increase powers of departments under the AQSIQ system or cut their statutory duties. At the same time, the Provisions expressly state that for draft rules that link to trade or may cause impacts on trade, evaluation should be conducted pursuant to applicable requirements to look at the compliance of trade policies therein; if these proposed rules relate to business activities of market players, they should be examined according to applicable requirements to ensure fair competition. In addition, the Provisions note that where the proposed rules are likely to create significant influence on trade once released, public opinions should be solicited on these rules and, meanwhile, the department in charge of drawing up the draft rules is required to, pursuant to applicable provisions of the World Trade Organization ("WTO") regarding notification and deliberation, send out a notification; and the procedures for issuing this notification and what is set forth in the notification should be consistent with the work rules of the AQSIQ regarding notification, deliberation and consultation.