SIP authorities recently announced a plan to take the lead in East China’s Jiangsu province to pilot a reform that is aimed at speeding up administrative review of environmental impact assessment (EAI) documents for construction projects in 10 designated sectors.

 

According to the plan, SIP will, starting from Nov 1, shorten the EAI document review term to one day and the public consultation term to five workdays for eligible project undertakers who can promise compliance with related laws and regulations and technical criteria.

The plan came in the wake of an early survey on SIP-based enterprises’ satisfaction with local EAI-related administrative services. It is designed to save construction project undertakers time and cost and further clarify related responsibilities.

The plan also specifies strict supervision and accountability mechanisms so that project undertakers will be punished if they break their promises.

The implementation of the plan will last till the end of the next year to see whether the reform can be rolled out to a wider range.