Focus on quality and safety and strengthen supervision

Recently, the Ministry of Transport issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Quality and Safety Supervision and Management of Highway and Waterway Engineering Construction (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions). It aims to thoroughly implement the decisions and requirements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council regarding quality and safety work, promote high-quality development in engineering construction, and comprehensively strengthen the quality and safety supervision and management of newly approved, verified, or filed highway and waterway infrastructure projects for construction, expansion, and renovation in accordance with the law.

The Opinions requires all localities and units to be guided by Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and follow the requirements of the Program of Building National Strength in Transportation and the Program of Planning for National Comprehensive and Multidimensional Transportation Network. Adhering to the principles of “quality first, safety foremost, prevention at the source, systematic governance, law-based supervision, strict adherence to bottom lines, demonstration and leadership, and promoting innovation,” they should focus on advancing high-quality construction and refined management, establish a modern quality and safety management system for engineering construction, improve the safety, durability, and service quality of projects, create top-tier facilities, and accelerate the efforts to build a country with great transport strength.

The Opinions points out that all localities and units should adhere to a people-centered philosophy of development, comprehensively establish new concepts of engineering construction quality and safety, and comprehensively build a new pattern of engineering construction quality and safety. They should take quality and safety as the core of transportation infrastructure construction and continue to enhance people’s sense of gain, happiness and security. They should take the establishment and improvement of a modern engineering construction quality and safety management system as the core and steadily improve the safety and durability of transportation infrastructure. The Opinions also outlines specific implementation guidelines across four key areas, including strengthening the enforcement of engineering quality and safety supervision responsibilities, fully implementing enterprise quality responsibilities, fully enforcing enterprise safety production responsibilities, and solidifying the foundation of engineering quality and safety management.

According to the Opinions, transportation authorities at all levels should raise their political awareness, follow the requirement that regulatory work must be strengthened rather than weakened, enhance organizational leadership, and enforce supervisory responsibilities. They should strengthen publicity efforts, provide positive guidance and expose negative issues, and effectively reinforce quality and safety supervision in highway and waterway infrastructure projects to provide quality and safety guarantees for accelerating the building of a country with great transport strength and playing a pioneering role in China’s modernization drive.