Published by ChinaMNC · Qingyuan

China's Government Information Disclosure Platform: What Foreign Founders Need to Know

A practical guide for foreign founders on how China's government information disclosure system is organized, what documents it publishes, and how to navigate the official portal when researching regulations, plans and agency reports.

Why the Government Information Disclosure Platform Matters for Foreign Founders

Foreign founders setting up or running a company in China often need to check official rules, policy plans and agency reports. The Chinese government's information disclosure platform (政府信息公开平台) on gov.cn is the central gateway for these materials. It does not provide legal advice or business services, but it organizes a large body of official documents in one place. Understanding its structure can save time when you or your local team need to confirm what has been published and when.

The platform is operated within the official government web system, with site identification and registration numbers displayed on the page. Documents carry an adopting date (成文日期) and a publication date (发布日期), which matter when you are checking whether a rule was in force at a particular time.

What the Platform Publishes

Core disclosure rules and notices

The platform lists key documents governing how government information is disclosed. These include the Regulation on the Disclosure of Government Information of the People's Republic of China, dated 15 April 2019, and a series of notices from the General Office of the State Council and its government information and affairs disclosure office. The listed notices cover topics such as:

• Rules for information disclosure by public enterprises and public institutions (notice dated 21 December 2020).
• Measures for handling fees for government information disclosure (notice dated 1 December 2020).
• Guidance on handling administrative reconsideration cases involving government information disclosure (notice dated 4 January 2022).
• Concentrated and dynamically updated publication of departmental rules (notice dated 29 October 2021).
• The format for annual reports on government information disclosure work (notice dated 29 September 2021).
• Standards for government information disclosure platforms (notice dated 3 December 2019).
• Several interpretive notices from 2017 and 2019 on practical questions, including how to handle disclosure applications after institutional reform, which channels receive applications, who is the responding body, how to fill in annual report items, how decisions are delivered, and how to distinguish disclosure matters from general business inquiries.

For founders, these documents explain the procedural side of requesting information from an agency. They are not company registration rules, but they clarify how the disclosure system itself works.

National development plans

The platform provides a dedicated section for national economic and social development plans. It lists the outlines of the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan and the 2035 long-range objectives, the Thirteenth, Twelfth, Eleventh and Tenth Five-Year Plan outlines. These are broad national planning documents. Foreign founders sometimes review them to understand medium- and long-term policy direction, but they should not be read as sector-specific operating rules.

Sector and special plans

A separate section lists special plans and State Council responses or notices. Examples shown on the page include:

• A State Council reply on the Special Education Development and Improvement Fifteenth Five-Year Action Plan.
• A notice on the Intellectual Property Protection and Utilization Fifteenth Five-Year Plan.
• A notice on the National Fitness Plan (2026–2030).
• A State Council reply on the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption.
• A notice on the National Health Fifteenth Five-Year Plan.
• A State Council reply on the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for the Revitalization and Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

These items are listed as titles with links to more. The page does not summarize their contents, so founders should open the original documents if a topic is relevant to their sector.

Local development plans

The platform links to local development plans for provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, listed by name: Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. A founder with operations in a specific city or province may find it useful to check the relevant local entry, while remembering that local implementation rules can differ from national plans.

Annual Disclosure Reports

The platform also publishes annual reports on government information disclosure work. The page lists reports for 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020. For each year, reports are grouped into several categories:

• Provincial-level government reports, organized by province, autonomous region and municipality.
• Reports from systems under vertical leadership, such as the People's Bank system, customs, tax, financial supervision, securities regulation, meteorology, grain and strategic reserves, tobacco, railway, civil aviation, postal, mining safety supervision, fire and rescue, and foreign exchange systems. The exact list of systems varies by year; for example, the 2022 list includes the banking and insurance regulator, while later lists show a financial supervision administration system.
• Reports from State Council departments, listed by ministry or agency name, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Commerce, People's Bank of China, General Administration of Customs, State Taxation Administration, State Administration for Market Regulation, National Financial Regulatory Administration, China Securities Regulatory Commission, National Intellectual Property Administration and many others.

These reports are accountability documents. They can help a founder see how a particular agency describes its disclosure work, but they are not a substitute for the underlying rules.

Using the Platform in Practice

The page includes a search function with a note that if no relevant results are found, users should check the input, simplify the search terms, or try similar or common words. In practice, this means foreign founders should search using the official Chinese names of agencies or documents where possible, and should verify the adopting date and publication date before relying on a document.

The platform also displays standard website filing and registration information, which confirms that it is part of the official government web system. It does not offer English translations of the listed documents, so founders may need local staff, advisers or translation support to review the originals.

For company registration and daily operations, the platform is best treated as a reference library for official rules and plans, not as a one-stop service portal. Founders should confirm requirements with the relevant agency or a qualified professional before acting.

This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.