The State Council asked its departments and provincial-level authorities around the country to enhance efforts to improve the quality of products, including food and drugs.

On April 14, the State Council issued a plan for 2015 on the implementation of the Quality Development Outline 2011 to 2020, which was released in 2012 and aims to improve the quality of the country’s products.

In the 2015 plan, the State Council asked that its departments and the provincial authorities should further streamline, and delegate to lower levels, administrative approval power concerning quality control.

It also requested clarification about the powers and duties of various authorities in the management of product quality and safety.

The central government departments and provincial authorities are also required to make great efforts to improve workers’ skills by setting up new systems to assess the performance of quality control technicians — and carrying out projects to nurture such technicians and highly-skilled workers.

The central government departments and provincial authorities should offer support to enterprises concerning the innovation of their products, in order to upgrade the manufacturing industry.

They should also protect the intellectual property rights of enterprises that have created such innovations, and enhance penalties for intellectual property rights violations.

The authorities should set up standards for brand assessment that are internationally acknowledged, so as to help domestic brands grow and prosper.

They should push enterprises to carry out their duties by making sure that they have the primary responsibility for any defective products they make or sell, and also ensuring that they recall such products.

Additionally, the authorities should ensure that construction companies are responsible for the quality of buildings they have built — throughout the expected life span of the buildings.

The authorities should also improve supervision on agricultural produce, food and drugs, and prevent incidents, such as food poisoning on school campuses.

They should set up a monitoring and warning network for food safety emergencies. And they should prevent harmful plants or animals from entering the country’s borders, and keep out harmful viruses.

The authorities are also required to strictly punish anyone who makes or sells fake products, including food, drugs, automobile parts and fertilizer.

In order to improve air quality, the authorities should establish stricter standards in the industries of steel and iron, cement, glass and clay, and make sure that enterprises which do not meet the standards cannot participate in these industries.