The State Administration for Market Regulation ("SAMR") has recently issued the Measures for Optimizing Entry Services and Tightening In-process and Ex-post Regulation Concerning Administrative Licensing of Special Equipment (the "Measures"), and meanwhile made an announcement to clarify arrangements for relevant work.
Among the Measures are "shortening the timeframe required for the examination and approval process and simplifying application documents", "enabling license holders to renew their licenses through a commitment in the self-declaration", "streamlining formalities for special equipment operators to renew their certificates" and "promoting the online processing of affairs". Among others, the Measures state that, for entities engaged in the manufacturing (including design, production, installation, repairs and transformation) of special equipment and special equipment inspection and testing agencies, the length of time needed for the examination and approval process to issue licenses will be further compressed to five working days. Also, where a special equipment operator applies for renewing his or her qualification certificate before its expiry date, the license-issuing authority will handle the formalities to straightly renew his or her certificate after completing the verification. According to the announcement, the measures to be carried out by the SAMR that enable the renewal of licenses via the said self-declaration are set to take effect from June 1, 2019; other measures related to the administrative licensing of special equipment will enter into force as of March 1, 2019.