CAAC officially issued the Tentative Measures for Credit Management of Civil Aviation Industry (hereinafter referred to as Management Measures) in order to implement the Guidelines of Building A Social Credit System (2014-2020) and the Guidance of the State Council upon Establishing and Improving the System of Joint Incentive for Keeping Credit and Joint Punishment for Discredit and Expediting Social Integrity Building, enhance the building of credit culture in the industry, maintain the order of civil aviation activities, and promote the healthy development of civil aviation industry.

The Management Measures contains five chapters with 31 provisions in total. It standardizes the collection, utilization and cancellation of credit information in civil aviation industry and requires the establishment of a national credit information database for civil aviation industry to comprehensively record the basic information and illegal discredit information of organizations and individuals (subjects for short) who engage in civil aviation activities in the territory of China or civil aviation activities out of the territory of China which need to be approved by China. Information of illegal discredit refers to information of discredit actions which break relevant laws, rules and administrative regulations, or which shall be added to the credit records according to certain rules. Such information can be divided into general discredit information and severe discredit information.

The Management Measures clarifies that subjects who are included in the credit records for general discredit acts will be under strict management if appropriate. For subjects who are included in the credit records for severe discredit acts, they will be subject to more frequent inspections and be severely punished according to the Standards of Discretion for Administrative Penalties of Civil Aviation Administrations, and accept various penalties, for example, the information of subjects with serious discredit acts being published on CAAC website, and other websites including Creditchina.gov.cn, Credit. Mot.gov.cn, and the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System; and the information of subjects with serious discredit acts being reported to the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Land and Resources, Ministry of Environmental Protection, the People’s Bank of China, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, China Securities Regulatory Commission, China Insurance Regulatory Commission, and China Banking Regulatory Commission which will take joint punishment measures.

The Management Measures specifies that CAAC shall be responsible for national civil aviation credit management, and CAAC regional administrations responsible for credit management under their respective jurisdiction. It also encourages relevant entities and individuals to provide credit information of subjects recorded by themselves to civil aviation administrations for reference. Meanwhile, the credit information and data shall be kept secure to protect the lawful rights and interests of information subjects.

The Management Measures will be implemented on a trial basis from January 1, 2018. Relevant provisions on general discredit acts will come into force from January 1, 2020.