China’s production safety situation was improving in 2019, and it is important that improving the business environment should not come at the cost of safety regulation, pointed out the National Emergency Management Conference held in Beijing from 6th to 7th January 2020.
In recent years, China has continuously optimized its business environment, and improved the efficiency of government services to enterprises. However, in this process, there are also some misconceptions, resulting in the relaxation of supervision, read an editorial in The Beijing News.
For example, some local governments green-lit enterprises that fail to pass the EIA. Such behavior goes against the original intention of optimizing the business environment, according to the editorial.
In fact, China’s regulations never equal optimizing the business environment to relaxing supervision. The Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment requires that the relevant government departments shall strictly follow the laws, regulations and duties and carry out the supervision responsibilities to supervise the market players.
Streamlining regulation and delegating powers to lower-level bodies does not mean forsaking all responsibilities, but requires local governments to punish and reward accordingly. It can be said that to optimize the business environment, supervision needs to raise standards rather than the opposite, argued the editorial.
Considering that it is the emergency management conference that articulates the requirements, the intention behind it is to reiterate the fundamental importance of safe production, without which optimizing business environment is empty talk, the article read. It is particularly the case with some high-risk industries, such as coal mining and hazardous chemicals.
Not relaxing supervision in the name of optimizing the business environment is also a requirement to modernize the emergency management system and capabilities, the editorial noted, adding that with the rapid development of various industries and more diverse production modes of enterprises, all kinds of risks and challenges will obviously rise.
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