The General Office of the Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM") has recently issued the Circular on Working Effectively on Green and Circular Consumption in 2018 (the "Circular").
The Circular rolls out arrangements in five aspects, including "deepening the building of green shopping malls", "making vigorous efforts to develop green catering services", "taking an active approach to promoting green procurement", "focusing on promoting green packages" and "promoting green recycling constantly". According to the Circular, with the focus on the implementation of the Guide to Green Procurement of Enterprises (for Trial Implementation), efforts will be made to launch standards for the green procurement industry, guide relevant associations, enterprises, scientific research institutions, and institutions of higher learning to set up the green procurement alliance and inspire online and offline enterprises to establish contacts with each other, in a bid to increase the percentage of green products bought. Meanwhile, in green shopping malls, a program aiming to reduce the use of plastic shopping bags will be launched, a move to call for green shopping malls to use plastic bags less and guide them in stepping up efforts on cutting plastic bag consumption. Furthermore, green package standards for the circulation field will be formulated, publicized and implemented, to speed up the standardization process for green packages.