On 28 September 2025 the Chinese legislator issued a novel Notice Regarding Implementing the Standards for Domestic Products and Relevant Policies in Government Procurement 国务院办公厅关于在政府采购中实施本国产品标准及相关政策的通知 guówùyuàn bàngōng tīng guānyú zài zhèngfǔ cǎigòu zhōng shíshī běnguó chǎnpǐn biāozhǔn jí xiāngguān zhèngcè de tōngzhī. The Notice is effective since 1 January 2026. It is relevant for foreign exporters to China inasmuch as it changes how “domestic products” are defined in public procurement. The new rules should be welcome by foreign bidders inasmuch as they reaffirm the prohibition of discriminatory tender terms such as restricting brands by registration location, ownership type, or investor nationality. However, they also say that products meeting the domestic product standards can participate in government procurement on an equal footing, while remarkably introducing a 20 percent price preference for qualifying local products in evaluations. Critics fear that this new rule could create a structural disadvantage for foreign exporters by forcing them to lower their prices by 20 percent unless they localize production in China. Implementation will clarify the rules during the transition period which is expected to last between three to five years starting within the next five years. Although WTO-compatibility concerns have been raised, this rule is not incompatible with China’s commitment to WTO since it while it is a member of WTO it has not yet joined the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA ; a sub-agreement independant from WTO membership) after its application has been rejected five times ; its sixth application is pending since 2019 and in a limbo. Therefore, the new rules can be understood either has an incentive either to open GPA’s door, or to produce in China.
See our note on this topic.