The General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Investment Approval System"

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 15th - In order to further optimize the allocation of investment approval authority, enhance investment service convenience, strengthen the supervision of investment projects throughout the whole process, and focus on expanding effective investments, the General Office of the State Council recently issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Investment Approval System" (referred to as the "Opinions" below), deploying related work. In terms of strict government investment project management, the "Opinions" propose to optimize the approval authority of government investment projects in accordance with the principles of consistent rights and responsibilities, effective supervision, and matching with the actual responsibilities; strictly prohibit using state-owned enterprises and other forms of enterprise investment project approval or filing to bypass government investment project approval in violation of regulations; improve project construction standards and investment budget determination standards, and strictly restrict project budgets; implement a lifetime accountability system for government investment project decision-making. In terms of regulating enterprise investment project management, the "Opinions" propose to dynamically revise the list of investment projects approved by the government; provincial governments should reasonably determine the approval authority for local enterprise investment projects based on the nature of the projects and the capacity of cities and counties to undertake them; promote the standardization of project filing information and filing certificate, strengthen the completeness and compliance verification of filing information with industrial policies; enhance the coordination between enterprise investment management policies, industrial policies, and factors such as fund management policies. In terms of improving investment approval efficiency and promoting project implementation, the "Opinions" propose to further promote the concept of "one-stop shop for fixed asset investment project approval"; further streamline investment project reporting and approval procedures, and consolidate the approval process for reporting items that are approved by the same department in parallel; standardize project bidding and tendering management, crack down severely on illegal practices such as avoiding bidding, bid rigging, and falsification; strengthen project construction implementation management, and improve the reporting system for investment project construction implementation information. In terms of strengthening project supervision and improving the evaluation system, the "Opinions" propose to strengthen the responsibility for full-process project supervision, with the investment supervisory department fulfilling comprehensive supervisory responsibilities, industry supervisory departments fulfilling industry supervisory responsibilities, and relevant departments of local governments fulfilling territorial supervisory responsibilities; establish an investment project decision-making comprehensive evaluation and performance evaluation system that is compatible with the requirements of high-quality development, effectively supporting investment decisions and project management. The "Opinions" emphasize the need to strengthen the coordination between the reform of the investment approval system and the reform of project investment and financing mechanisms, as well as key areas of pricing and fee reforms, to better leverage synergies. All regions and relevant departments should implement this opinion according to their division of responsibilities, and the investment supervisory department of the State Council should strengthen overall coordination and guidance to jointly promote the effectiveness of reform measures. (End) This article is reproduced from "Xinhua News Agency", GMTEight editor: Liu Jiayin.