Allow reputable companies to enjoy more benefits and significantly reduce institutional transaction costs. Our country will establish a comprehensive credit evaluation system for enterprises.

Securities Times reporter Han Zhongnan

Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the Implementation Plan on Establishing a Comprehensive Enterprise Credit Assessment System (hereinafter referred to as the “Implementation Plan”). The “Implementation Plan” states that it is necessary to better leverage the fundamental role of public credit assessment results in the comprehensive enterprise credit assessment, to promote the mutual integration of public credit assessment and market-based credit assessment, and to gradually form a unified comprehensive enterprise credit assessment system.

Experts said that, through systematic design, the “Implementation Plan” establishes the institutional framework and operating mechanisms for the comprehensive enterprise credit assessment system. With practical measures, it addresses problems such as duplicated assessments, fragmented standards, and insufficient protection of rights and interests, thereby advancing corporate credit assessment from the “self-exploration” stage to a new phase of “unified and standardized” implementation.

The “Implementation Plan” requires improving the public credit assessment system, unifying public credit assessment rules, industry credit assessment management, and the channels for disclosing public credit assessment results, establishing and improving coordinated mechanisms for industry credit assessment, standardizing the development of market-based credit assessment, and accelerating the integrated application of public credit assessment with market-based credit assessment. It also aims to better play the role of credit assessment in supporting financing for small and micro enterprises, improve the evaluation update and adjustment mechanism after credit repair, keep objection and appeal handling channels open, and implement responsibilities for credit assessment management.

In response to the pain points that assessment rules across different regions and departments are not consistent and that results are not mutually recognized, the “Implementation Plan” clarifies the respective rights and responsibilities for assessment, unifies public credit assessment rules, and breaks down market barriers from the institutional level. This enables enterprises with good credit to enjoy more credit-related benefits in areas such as financing and bidding, and significantly reduces institutional transaction costs.

He Ling, Director of the Comprehensive Assessment Division at the Development and Promotion Center for Business Environment of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that the issuance of the “Implementation Plan” is an important institutional arrangement for improving the high-level socialist market economy system, building a nationally unified large market, and creating a world-class business environment.

To ensure the smooth implementation of the plan, the “Implementation Plan” emphasizes that local governments and relevant departments should do a good job in implementing it, strengthen data-sharing support, optimize credit assessment procedures, standardize the application of credit assessment, promote the establishment and improvement of a legal and regulatory system related to enterprise credit assessment, and handle the work of drafting new rules, revising existing ones, repealing obsolete ones, and issuing interpretive documents. It also calls for creating a fair and competitive market environment and supporting the development of a nationally unified large market.

Zhang Xiaolan, a researcher in the Department of Informatization and Industrial Development at the National Information Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that with the steady advancement of the “Implementation Plan,” the comprehensive enterprise credit assessment system will continue to improve. The institutional advantages of “credit empowering development” will be further transformed into tangible outcomes that promote high-quality development.