Following deliberation and adoption by the State Council's Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference for Standardization Coordination, AQSIQ and SAC have recently issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Cultivation and Development of Group Standards" (the "Guiding Opinions").
The "Guiding Opinions" note that cultivating and developing group standards is an important measure for harnessing the decisive role of the market in the allocation of standardization resources and accelerating the construction of a new national standards system. In line with the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the work shall take service to innovation-driven development and meeting market needs as its starting point, with "streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving services" as the main thread, unleashing the vitality of social organizations in setting and applying standards, regulating group standardization work, increasing effective standards supply, advancing mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and supporting sustainable economic and social development.
The "Guiding Opinions" set out the main objectives for cultivating and developing group standards: by 2020, group standards developed independently by the market will be relatively mature, better meeting the needs of market competition and innovation-driven development.
— The number of group standards and their competitiveness will steadily improve. Social organizations will develop a large number of competitive group standards in fields with high market maturity and active technological innovation.
— The influence of group standards-setting bodies will be markedly enhanced. Group standardization work will gain broad recognition in society, and a number of internationally well-known and influential group standards-setting bodies will emerge.
— The working mechanism for group standardization will be substantially improved. The mechanism for social organizations to develop standards independently will be more standardized, and mechanisms for third-party assessment, public oversight, and government in-process and post-process oversight will be more robust.
Following the "streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving services" thread, and from the three perspectives of "unleashing market vitality, innovating management approaches, and optimizing standards services", the "Guiding Opinions" propose key measures for cultivating and developing group standards, actively creating a relaxed development space, promoting orderly and standardized development, and effectively safeguarding the sustained and healthy development of group standards.
