28/02/2020

The Regulation on the Implementation of the Foreign Investment Law of the People’s Republic of China that was published by the State Council in December 2019 came into force in January 2020.

Background:

The regulation is a supporting document to the Foreign Investment Law of China which was published in March 2019. The Foreign Investment Law came into force on January 1, 2020, upon which the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-foreign Equity Joint Ventures , the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises , and the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Cooperative Joint Ventures were repealed.

Article 15 of the Law states that China will guarantee FIEs equal participation in standard development work, and at the same time, reinforces information disclosure and public scrutiny in the development of standards. The compulsory standards (GB standards) developed by the State shall equally apply to FIEs.

 

Article of the Regulation on FIE’s equal participation in China’s standardization.

Two articles of the Regulation explain FIEs’ equal participation rights in China’s standardization work.

  1. Article 13 of the Regulation states that FIEs shall equally participate in the development and revision of standards including national standards, sector standards, local standards and association standards. Besides, if enterprise standards are needed FIEs have the right to develop their enterprise standards.
  2. During the formulation of the standards drafting plans and the standards development, the technical review of standards, the calling for comments of the implementation of standards, and the standards assessment, FIEs may offer recommendations to the administrative standardization department (SAC) and relevant administrative departments (MIIT and MOST). Article 13 also states that FIEs may undertake work on the development of standards and technical review as well as the foreign language translation of standards according to the relevant provisions.
  3. Article 13 sets the responsibilities for the administrative standardization department and relevant administrative departments. Those responsibilities include establishing and improving the relevant standardization working mechanism, making the development and revision of standards more transparent and promoting the whole process of information disclosure for the development and revision of standards.
  4. Article 14 of the Regulation makes it clear again that the compulsory standards developed by the State shall apply equally to FIEs, and that technical requirements which are higher than compulsory standards shall not apply to FIEs either.

Articles of the Regulation on the protection of FIEs’ intellectual property right.

According to Article 23, where any patent of an FIE is involved in the development of standards, the administrative provisions of standards involving the patent shall apply.

 

Articles of the Regulation on the legal liability of the government, the relevant department or any of its staff members.

Article 41 of the Regulation includes information on legal liability for illegally restricting the equal participation of FIEs in developing and revising standards and for applying technical requirements which are higher than compulsory standards to any FIE.