27/03/2020

With only 11 kinds of products and services in the priority fields, 2018 served as a trial year for the enterprise standards “Top Runners” project, while 2019 witnessed the rapid development of the whole system and the number of products and servicesin the priority fields rapidly increased to 100. In February of 2020, China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS) published the 2019 Annual Report on the Enterprise Standards “Top Runners” Project, the report gives readers a general view of the whole “Top Runners” project.

How many enterprise standards have been disclosed until now?

The Standardization Law of China encourages the public disclosure of enterprise standards through the Standard Information Public Service Platform. The “Top Runners” project is based on the disclosure and supervision of the enterprise standards for products and services. The enterprise standards in the “Top Runners” project all come from the enterprise standards published on the Enterprise Standard Information Public Service Platform. Figure 1 provides a general overview of the increasing number of Chinese enterprise standards disclosure since 2015. By the end of 2019, 1,269,722 enterprise standards have been disclosed by the enterprises.

 

How is the “Top Runners” project carried out?

Normally there are four steps in the “Top Runners” project. First, the priority fields of the “Top Runners” project are decided by the relevant government departments. Then, to carry out the assessment of all the enterprise standards, CNIS collects the names of the third-party assessment agencies. The agencies chosen are in charge of establishing the assessment mechanisms and carrying out the assessment process of the enterprise standards. After the assessment, the list of “Top Runners” is published.

 

How many third-party assessment agencies were involved in the 2019 “Top Runners” project?

In 2019, more than 180 assessment agencies registered on the platform, and 415 assessment plans had been uploaded. CNIS organized an experts group which reviewed all of the assessment plans and published the final list with 91 assessment agencies and 124 assessment plans. 58 kinds of products or services were jointly assessed by more than one assessment agency, 34 were assessed by one assessment agency and 8 kinds of products or services did not have any assessment plan. See Figure 2.

 

How many enterprise standards were elected to be the “Top Runners”?

In 2019, 2436 enterprise standards of 2100 enterprises took part in the “Top Runners” assessment, and 317 standards were elected as the “Top Runners” standards. Figure 3 shows the distribution of those “Top Runners” standards in different fields.

Why enterprises run for the “Top Runners” project?

Supportive and incentive policies for enterprise standard “Top Runners” have been published in 22 provinces and cities. For example, Chinese local governments encourage and support financial institutions to increase credit support for the enterprise standards “Top Runners”; priority is given to the “Top Runners” enterprises during public procurement. Meanwhile, local governments also encourage e-commerce, large department stores and other enterprises to actively adopt and trust the evaluation results of the enterprise standards “Top Runners”. Different local governments might publish different supportive and incentive policies, which will definitely help “Top Runners” enterprises in fundraising and selling their products to the market.

Background:

Enterprise standards, as the market-driven standards in the Chinese standards system, are aimed at increasing competitiveness. To achieve this goal and to further foster the development of enterprise standards with higher technological requirements, China launched the Enterprise Standards “Top Runners” project in 2017. Enterprise standards “Top Runners” refer to enterprises with higher-level core indicators of their products or services than other candidate enterprises.

The “Top Runners” project is under the guidance of the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) and the Standardization Administration of China (SAC). At the same time, the responsibilities to organize and coordinate related work are taken by CNIS.