FOI annual report in China

On 31 March, the General Office of the State Council promulgated its first FOI annual report. The report covers particulars of proactive disclosure, FOI training and survey and others. Two important things mentioned in this report are an FOI directive, titled Several Suggestions on Implementation of the China’s FOI Regulations (No.36 [2008] of the General Office of the State Council), and a standardized information inventory. The report does not deal with particulars of access requests. This is because the ‘Several Suggestions’ notice excludes the General Office of the State Council, at the present stage, from the coverage of receiving information requests, although the scope of FOI Regulations extends to government agencies at all levels.

In addition, it seems that we cannot see a comprehensive FOI annual report at the national level. Basically, each government agency makes its own report public. Several government agencies published their annual report before the due date, such as the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Public Security.