On 6 December 2021, SAC, together with nine other ministries, issued the 14th Five-Year Plan for Developing the National Standards System Promoting “High-Quality” Development”. The policy sets out principles, goals, and key areas for the development of national standards during the 14th five-year period (2021-2025); it also outlines measures to improve the national standardization system, and ultimately contribute to the achievement of” high-quality development”.

  1. Principles. The policy states that national standardization work shall follow the principles of being innovation-led, demand-oriented, production chain-supported, openness and alignment, and high quality and efficiency.
  2. Goals. The policy requires that by 2025, national standards shall cover all sectors, while their structure shall be optimized, higher quality standards produced, more openness and alignment to international standards achieved, standards setting capacities enhanced, and standards implemented in a more efficient way.
  3. Nine key areas. The policy identifies 9 key areas for national standards development, including agriculture, food and consumer products, high-end manufacturing, new generation information technology and biotechnology, to urban construction, services, business environment, public security emergency response, and ecology protection.
  4. Measures. The policy depicts measures to improve the national standardization system from six dimensions: i) optimization of mandatory national standards, ii) enhancement of the quality and relevance of voluntary national standards, iii) conversion of R&D achievements to national standards, iv) adoption of association standards in the national standardization system, v) adoption of international standards, vi) management and promotion of national reference materials.

All in all, the policy indicates the directions and trends  of China’s national standardization  for the next five year, namely to become more open and transparent, fit for the digital age, and conform to international good practices. Nonetheless, several measures it adopted are still controversial, like the push to convert R&D achievements to standards: generally, R&D achievements represent the highest technical level in an industry, while standards are more like an average level as they are developed based on the industry’s consensus, instead of leading technologies.

Background: What is the “High-quality development”?

“High-quality development” is a development pattern that the CCP Centre Committee has determined for Chinese economy for the 14th Five-year plan period and afterwards, shifting from the previous pattern of rapid growth that characterised the decades since the reforms and opening-up policy was introduced in the late 1970s. There hasn’t been a clear official definition of this term, but top government leaders’ explanation may give a hint: “‘High-quality’ development features innovation-driven, balance, green, openness and inclusiveness, and shall involve reforms in quality, efficiency and growth forces amid economic development”, Vice-Premier Liu He said in an article published in People’s Daily on 24 November 2021.

 

EU-CLEAR kindly made the translation of the policy document, please click here for the full text in English.