Recently the Decision of Guangzhou Municipal Government on Standardizing 79 Governmental Department Administrative Approval Intermediary Services in the First Batch (Sui Fu Gui [2016]) (the Decision) was officially distributed, indicating that Guangzhou has made interim progresses in standardizing the administrative approval intermediary services.

 

For many years the administrative approval intermediary services have played an important role in urging the governmental departments to fulfill their duties by law and provide professional technical services for applicants. In this process some problems existed, for example the large number of procedures, time-consuming, arbitrary charges and high monopoly and some institutions engaging in the intermediary services that have interest associations with the governmental departments. These problems offset effect of the administrative approval system reform, increased burdens of enterprises and the masses, undermined the market order and even became a breeding ground of corruption.

 

Guangzhou municipal government issued the Decision to standardize the first batch of the 79 governmental department administrative approval intermediary services for the purpose of earnestly solving the outstanding problems abovementioned, shifting the intermediary organizations back to the market positioning and service orientation to facilitate the public to handle affairs and start businesses. Strictly referring to the cleaning up and standardization standards of the provincial government and the State Council, the Decision cleaned up and standardized 79 intermediary services of the governmental departments, involving 47 administrative approval items of 20 departments, and clarified that these items would no longer be the acceptance conditions for the administrative approval of the governmental departments.

 

Of that, 31 items do not request the applicant to provide the related appraisal, demonstration, authentication and certification and other materials, mainly involving the land planning, housing and urban and rural construction, environmental protection, commerce, public security, education, health and family planning, news and publication fields. These items are canceled, and will no longer be the preconditions of the administrative approval.

 

And 28 items do not request the applicants to provide relevant materials and change to that the approval departments entrust the related institutions by themselves to carry out the technical services according to the actual needs, mainly involving the land planning, transportation, civil affairs, commerce, water affairs, urban management and cultural fields. These items will choose the government procurement mode and select the service providers through the competition mechanism. And the service fees will be paid by the approval departments and included in the fiscal budget of the departments.

 

The the rest 14 items still require the applicants to provide related materials, but the applicants can formulate the materials by themselves according to the related requirements or entrust related institutions to formulate such materials, mainly involving the development reform, land planning, industrial information, water affairs, forestry and gardens, and agriculture. The approval departments are not allowed to request the applicants in any form to entrust specific institutions. Meanwhile the existing technical appraisal of the approval departments should be maintained. In addition, Guangzhou municipal government distributed the Decision of Guangzhou Municipal Government on Retaining, Delegating and Canceling Administrative Permit Registration Items (No 142 order of the municipal government) on September 30. This document canceled some administrative approval items, and six items corresponding to the intermediary services were canceled, mainly involving security supervision, environmental protection and forestry and garden fields.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, December 12, 2016