The Ministry of Ecology and Environment ("MEE") has recently formulated and issued the Announcement on Requirements for Relevant Work After the Cancellation of the Administrative Approval Item Concerning the Qualification of Environmental Impact Assessment for Construction Projects (for Temporary Implementation) (the "Announcement").
The Announcement reads that, the MEE has ceased accepting applications for the qualification of environmental impact assessment for construction projects and has discontinued the unfinished examination of those accepted applications, since December 29, 2018; also, the management system for the practicing information of environmental impact assessment engineers has ceased accepting application documents since that time, and no registration codes will be issued for those applications which have been accepted but not yet granted the registration codes. Meanwhile, the Announcement requires that, a project owner may either entrust a technical unit to prepare the environmental impact report (statement), or prepare such report (statement) on its own if it is technically capable. Moreover, the Announcement expressly states that, environmental impact reports (statements) cannot be prepared by four types of units, including "legal-person enterprises funded by public institutions established by authorities of ecology and environment".