On 19 March 2026, the State Administration for Market Regulation of China (SAMR) released its legislative agenda for 2026 to enhance market system. The agenda comprises 18 distinct work items organized across 4 strategic priorities: market rules, e-commerce, quality infrastructure and safety bottom line for food, drugs, and other important industrial products.
Particularly, three revision plans under quality infrastructure will take place:
- Measures for the Administration of Compulsory Product Certification Institutes and Laboratories (CCC related)
- Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Inspection and Testing Institutions
- Measures for the Administration of Commodity Barcodes
In 2025, SAMR tabled an expansive 27-item legislative agenda encompassing market entry reforms, broad product quality legislation, and other aspects. Among them, 6 specific items spanned safety supervision, metrology, conformity assessment frameworks, and the adoption of international standards. Taken together, these items represent a broad, horizontal approach to level up administrative frameworks for standards and quality infrastructure across industrial sectors.
The 2026 legislative tasks takes a more targeted approach. Following severe accidents involving power banks in the previous year, this year’s focus is on refining regulatory rules for testing and certification bodies. The revision will address systematic loopholes and raise standards for relevant bodies to ensure product safety and public trust in certification system. It is evident that the reform will begin with CCC, one of the most critical and foundational areas.
Additionally, following the announcement of the 2026 legislative tasks, SAMR officially promulgated the new Measures for the Administration of Commodity Barcodes. The measures are revised to strengthen unified management of commodity barcodes, reduce compliance burden on enterprises, and assign formal status to product digital identifiers, and highlight their new full-lifecycle functionality to enhance traceability. Its full-lifecycle approach is similar to Digital Product Passport, yet it differs as the identifiers carry a more limited set of information. SESEC has also prepared a dedicated article on this topic. (https://sesec.eu/2026/04/07/china-revises-barcode-regulations-to-enhance-traceability-and-ease-corporate-compliance/)
In light of the imminent introduction of the new commodity barcode measures, SESEC strongly recommends that European stakeholders operating in China consult with relevant stakeholders and undertake timely adjustments prior to the effective date. SESEC will also continue to monitor the progress of China’s legislative movement in 2026, and provide timely updates.
Source: https://www.samr.gov.cn:8080/xw/zj/art/2026/art_eebdacc52fb641d98fcf71b099765e11.html
