New measures to speed up approval procedures

A notification-commitment system will be promoted at all levels countrywide to speed up administrative approval procedures, as decided by an Oct 21 executive meeting of the State Council, China’s Cabinet, presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

The system will require individuals or businesses to guarantee the accuracy of information given on application documents without the need to provide certificates, as is the case at present.

The reform aims to tackle the problems that many individuals or businesses encounter in administrative application procedures when they are requested to provide certificates that are hard to obtain from relevant bodies at short notice.

When the reform comes into effect, applicants will only need to make a commitment instead of providing certificates for applicable items, according to the system, which was piloted from May last year in 13 provinces and municipalities and in five State Council departments.

The attendees decided that the notification-commitment system should be implemented as soon as possible to cover areas concerning people’s livelihoods and companies’ production activities, in addition to administrative services that are in high demand or hard-to-obtain certificates.

Early implementation is seen as essential, especially in areas such as household registration management, operating permits for market entities and social security insurance.

The system will not be applied to matters concerning public security, environmental protection or personal health, and the list of applicable items should be made public.

Applicants should be responsible for their commitments, the meeting said, but if an applicant is unwilling or unable to make a commitment, a certificate or permit must be submitted or requested in line with regulations.

If a guarantee is found to be untrue or even fraudulent, the application process will be terminated in accordance with the law.

Moreover, applicants will be required to make rectification within a fixed period or receive administrative punishment, or any decision already reached will be canceled.

Applicants who act in bad faith will see their fraudulent commitments filed in their credit record and will be given a corresponding punishment.