The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ("MIIT") has recently issued the Implementing Opinions on Promoting the Standardization in the Industrial and Communication Sectors to Serve the Belt and Road Initiative (the "Opinions").
The Opinions set goals of basically forming a new situation of standardization cooperation for the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative that features openness, inclusiveness, interconnectivity and sharing of fruits, in which Chinese standards will increasingly be compatible with the international standard system and standard systems of other countries, and Chinese standard brands will have significant impact, by the year 2020. To this end, the Opinions explicitly state that measures will be taken to strengthen the top-level design and capture appropriate opportunities for cooperation, deepen international cooperation with the focus on major areas, and promote the collaborative development and interconnectivity of standards and expand room for further industry development. Moreover, the Opinions call for efforts to support relevant industry associations, enterprises and others in organizing activities to make a comparative analysis of international and foreign technological regulations, standard systems and standards adopted by major countries along the route of the "Road and Belt" and by international and regional standardization organizations, and to take an active approach to adopting international standards and advanced foreign standards, so as to improve the consistency between China's standard system and those of major countries and regions along the said route.