The 15th Five-Year Plan outline makes major arrangements for deepening the construction of a unified national market, accelerating the building of a quality-focused nation, and strengthening food and drug safety regulation. On September 20th, the State Council Information Office held a press conference under the "Laying the Groundwork for the 15th Five-Year Plan" series, detailing efforts to promote high-quality market regulation development during this period. The spokesperson and deputy director of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Shu Wei, explained that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, efforts will focus on better regulating competition order, protecting consumer rights, fostering business development, and stimulating market vitality, creating a world-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized.
This will provide strong support for building a unified, open, competitive, and orderly market system, and for establishing an economic order that is both "flexible in regulation" and "effective in management."
Antitrust Enforcement to Target APIs, Utilities, and the Platform Economy
Advancing the construction of a unified national market plays a crucial role in leveraging China's advantages as a mega-market and strengthening the driving force of economic development. What measures will be taken during the 15th Five-Year Plan period to resolutely remove the bottlenecks and obstacles hindering this unified market? Wang Guowei, director of the Planning and Finance Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation, stated that fair competition review will be strengthened, and the foundational position of competition policy will be upheld and reinforced. Within economic policy systems, competition policy should serve as the underlying and basic rule, with industrial, investment, fiscal, and tax policies all premised on maintaining fair competition.
Antitrust enforcement quality and efficiency will be continuously improved to resolutely break down local protectionism and market segmentation. Greater emphasis will be placed on monitoring and early warning of monopoly risks, using tools such as compliance guidelines, administrative guidance, and warning talks at an earlier stage, so that monopolistic behaviors can be effectively prevented before they occur. Antitrust enforcement will target key livelihood-related sectors including active pharmaceutical ingredients, utilities like water, electricity, gas, and heating, and the platform economy, ensuring that all cases are investigated and results are promptly disclosed. Wang Guowei added that unifying market rules and systems to ensure the smooth flow of resources and factors requires local governments to better establish and practice a correct view of political achievements in promoting economic activities, discarding departmental egotism and short-sighted thinking.
How to Drive Innovation and Sound Growth in the Platform Economy?
Zhu Jianqiao, director of the Network Transaction Supervision Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation, noted: "Only when platforms shoulder their due responsibilities, and operators within platforms, workers, and consumers share the development dividends, can the platform economy achieve sustained and stable progress." Relevant authorities will accelerate the revision of the E-Commerce Law, introducing penalty types such as proportional fines and suspension of related businesses, and expanding the scope of adjustment to include e-commerce operators in new business formats, workers in new employment forms, and entities associated with platforms.
Efforts will continue to enhance the routine regulatory level of the platform economy. This includes deepening special actions on platform verification and registration obligations, and launching special campaigns for the governance of live-streaming e-commerce and the standardized regulation of second-hand e-commerce platforms. Compliance guidance will be intensified, with research and development of a compliance evaluation guide for online trading platforms, guiding platform enterprises to improve their compliance management levels and firmly uphold their "gatekeeper" responsibilities.
Increasing Random Inspections on Products with Abnormally Low Prices, High Safety Risks, and Historically Low Pass Rates
"Price wars cannot secure a future; only high quality can win the market," Shu Wei commented. It is necessary to accelerate the shift of market competition from a "price competition" track to a "quality competition" track, promoting a market consensus that favors "better quality, better price" and "winning by quality." What measures will be introduced during the 15th Five-Year Plan period to comprehensively address "involution-style" competition and foster an orderly market environment that rewards quality? Price enforcement will be strengthened. The revision of the Price Law will be accelerated, along with research on amending regulations aimed at curbing below-cost dumping. Enterprises that initiate malicious low-price competition and disrupt production and business order will undergo cost investigations and price inspections, and will be handled strictly by law. The implementation of the "Rules on Internet Platform Price Behavior" will be advanced to standardize price competition within the platform economy.
Quality supervision will also be intensified, with increased random inspection of products characterized by abnormally low prices, high safety risks, and historically low pass rates, and a higher proportion of checks in key areas such as e-commerce platforms and wholesale markets. Consistency between online and offline regulation will be enhanced, and a unified national product quality and safety traceability system will be built more quickly, ensuring platform enterprises fulfill their primary responsibilities for product information verification and recall coordination. Special governance of industrial product quality sold online will be deepened, with strict action taken against illegal and non-compliant online sales activities. Anti-unfair competition measures will be strengthened, focusing on key issues such as false advertising, mutual slander, commercial defamation, and commercial bribery, investigating and punishing a series of representative cases by law. Protection of trade secrets will be enhanced, with local regulations and management standards explored and introduced based on local conditions, and pilot projects for trade secret protection and service station development actively promoted.
This year, the Office of the National Quality Powerhouse Construction Coordination and Promotion Leading Group has initiated the first quality supervision inspections, targeting quality risks triggered by "involution-style" competition through unannounced visits and random checks. All 153 identified problem leads have been transferred to local authorities for handling. Zhu Jianqiao explained that the role of quality supervision in promoting quality improvement will continue to be leveraged. Efforts will be increased in supervision and random inspections, accelerating the coding and verification of quality and safety for key online products, strengthening defective product recall supervision, accurately transmitting quality signals to the market, and fostering an environment where quality products prevail. The technical supervision system for quality and safety will be strengthened, focusing on technical institutions responsible for traceability, inspection, testing, and certification, promoting increased resource investment, reinforcing their public welfare attributes, and effectively utilizing their role in product quality risk control.
Focus on Cracking Down on Counterfeits, Price Fraud, and Unfair Clauses
Recent media reports have exposed multiple issues related to edible agricultural products and food, highlighting the urgency and importance of strengthening food safety regulation. "Some food business operators still believe there is room for bargaining with illegal costs, and illegal profit-seeking activities occur from time to time," Wang Guowei stated. "We will address prominent issues through special rectification, and impose severe punishments by law on those who are maliciously violating regulations or repeatedly offending." Next, regulatory authorities will focus on clarifying regulatory responsibilities across various links including origin certification, market admission, warehousing, transportation, delivery, and the new business forms of online sales and dining, improving coordination mechanisms, and forming more effective regulatory synergy.
Pharmaceutical safety is a key component of public safety. Yang Sheng, deputy director of the National Medical Products Administration, said: "We will closely monitor the safety of vaccines and centrally procured medical devices and drugs, focusing on key links such as clinical trials and contract manufacturing, as well as key business formats like online sales, conducting risk investigation actions, and intensifying monitoring, sampling, and inspection." The full lifecycle pharmacovigilance system will be improved, the standardization of pharmacovigilance work in medical institutions will be promoted, and post-market evaluation of key varieties will be deepened. Online sales supervision will be strengthened, exploring the linkage between complaint reporting and risk early warning, and reinforcing coordinated risk management to ensure early detection, early warning, and early handling of risks. "The starting point and ultimate goal of market regulation work is to ensure that the people can buy with confidence, eat with peace of mind, and use with reassurance," Shu Wei said.
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, market regulatory authorities will focus on addressing prominent issues that draw strong public concern, such as counterfeits and shoddy goods, price fraud, evasion of after-sales responsibilities, false commitments, and exploitative clauses. Big data and artificial intelligence will be employed to screen and identify leads of violations, regulating business activities like online sales and live-streaming e-commerce, and promoting the healthy and orderly development of consumer markets in new business formats.
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