Insufficient Construction Market Regulations

Recently, the Legal Affairs Office of the State Council has issued the "Management Regulations for the Construction Market (Draft for Soliciting Opinions)" (referred to as the "Management Regulations"), referring directly to the chaos in the construction industry such as dismemberment, contracting, illegal subcontracting, and arrears of construction funds. In addition, the "Regulations" also emphasizes that relevant government departments will illegally interfere with project construction and will assume corresponding legal responsibilities.

Some experts stated that the "Regulations on Management" is an in-depth specification of China's construction market in the form of administrative regulations. Compared with similar laws and regulations of the past, the content is more detailed and covers a wide range of areas. However, the draft is still flawed.

Establishing and perfecting various rewards and penalties In recent years, China’s economic and social development has been rapid, and the construction market has been unprecedentedly active. The construction market management field has revealed some problems that need to be resolved. The “Management Regulations” analyzes the current chaos in the construction market: the responsibilities of government departments are not clear, the disclosure of information in the field of engineering construction is not standardized and opaque, some government investment projects are seriously over-estimate, capital management is confusing, and construction projects are illegal. Subcontracting, illegal subcontracting, cutting corners and materials, strict construction supervision, arbitrary compression schedules, and failure to implement safety responsibilities.

In response to the above problems, the "Management Regulations" has strengthened the management and punishment of the construction sector, clarified the responsibilities of relevant government departments and practitioners in the implementation of construction projects, and established and improved the following systems: System, project subcontracting, subcontracting, dismembering contracting, affiliation, Party A's designated subcontracting and sub-provisioning prohibition system, project completion, establishment of a permanent sign public project information system, and labor service information sharing system, the project duration may not be arbitrarily compressed, and the supervision unit may elect The chief management engineer implements the safety responsibility system, and the construction unit and the total contractor pay for the project money and labor service fees in a timely manner. The related units and individuals violate the specific penalty system of this regulation.

Zhang Yong, a Beijing-based Changhong law firm, said that the "Management Regulations" is a deep standard for the construction market in China in the form of administrative regulations. Among them, some regulations are retrials of previous systems, and some systems are newly established. The "Management Regulations" has made a framework for regulating the responsibilities, rights, and benefits of relevant government departments, construction, construction, supervision, surveying, and designing agencies, and has issued detailed rules for punishment.

Zhou Jigao, director of the Construction Engineering Business Research Committee of the Shanghai Bar Association, said that the “Regulations on Regulations” are more standardized than the legal norms of the existing construction market. Previously, although many provinces had regulations for the construction market, they did not issue regulations for the nationwide construction market. "According to the reporter's understanding, at present, Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, Hunan Province, Jilin Province and other provinces and municipalities all have similar laws and regulations for the "Architectural Market Regulations," but their contents are not the same.

Zhou Jiao also pointed out that compared with the "Construction Project Quality Management Regulations" and "Construction Project Safety Management Regulations", the "Regulations on Management" pay more attention to regulating the conduct of construction units. First of all, for the situation that government investment funds and construction unit funds are not implemented, the “Regulations on Management” stipulates that construction permits will not be issued or construction permits will not be approved. Second, the “Regulations on Management” stipulates that the government and construction units must not arbitrarily compress Duration to affect project quality and safety.

Zhou Jiao said that there are still omissions in the "Regulations". He pointed out that at present, some construction units control the construction project cost by setting the bidding control price (the maximum price), but some bidding agencies have set the maximum price limit lower than the project cost price. Low-priced bid winners are profitable and they have to cut corners and cut corners, resulting in frequent occurrence of engineering quality accidents and safety accidents. The "Regulations" have not provided for this.

Execution is the key Projects with serious quality problems have frequently occurred throughout the country in recent times, such as the collapse of buildings in Shanghai and the collapse of roads and bridges in Harbin. For this project with serious quality problems, Zhang Yong suggested that regulations should increase the scope and intensity of the responsibility. He said that how to implement targeted drafts of the draft will be the key to testing the unregulated management of this regulation. "The phenomenon of illegal subcontracting and dismembering the contracting of the bag is universal, and although the state has been banned, such phenomena still exist and the implementation of the policy is the key," said Zhang Yong.

In addition, Zhang Yong also pointed out the shortcomings of this draft. He said that Article 9 of the Regulations stipulates that when a construction unit implements a general contracting construction project, a construction unit within the scope of the qualification of the general contractor may not be contracted to more than two units. However, in Article 27 of the “Building Law”, a large-scale construction project or a complex-structured construction project may be jointly contracted by more than two contractors, and the parties to the joint contraction shall jointly and severally assume responsibility for the performance of the contract. Zhang Yong believes that there is a contradiction between the two, how to solve the problem after it has been solved, and it depends on which regulations have been implemented to be coordinated.

Zhou Jiao also stated that while looking at the “Construction Project Quality Management Regulations” and the “Construction Project Safety Management Regulations”, although strict regulations were imposed on some illegal activities, they have not been effectively stopped, dismembered and contracted, illegally subcontracted, and subcontracted. The phenomenon of affiliation and affiliation is still serious. The reason is that the above regulations have not been well implemented. Therefore, the regulations clarify the responsibilities of some actors, but it remains to be seen whether they can be effectively implemented.