On December 27th, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) released the ‘Guidance Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2024 Edition)’ which will come into effect on February 1st, 2024. The Catalogue (2024 Edition) consists of three categories: encouragement, restriction and elimination.

Compared with the previous version, in terms of industry settings, the encouragement category has added industries such as intelligent manufacturing, agricultural machinery equipment, CNC machine tools, and cybersecurity, as well as related areas that are conducive to industrial optimization and upgrading. The restriction and elimination categories have added relevant areas that do not meet the requirements of green development and safe production.

In terms of item settings, it adheres to the principles of marketization and rule of law, emphasizes the role of standards in safety, environmental protection, energy consumption, and quality, implements the requirements of the energy efficiency benchmark level and benchmark level in key industrial fields, promotes energy conservation and carbon emission reduction in key areas, and avoids simply using production capacity, equipment scale, etc. as new restrictions or eliminations.

According to relevant regulations, the encouraged projects shall be examined, approved or filed. For restricted projects, new construction is prohibited, and existing production capacity is allowed to be transformed and upgraded within a certain period. For eliminated projects, investment is prohibited and eliminated within the prescribed time limit.