Notice of the Office of Guangdong Provincial Drug Administration on Issuing the Three-Year Action Plan for Improving the Production Quality Management System of Cosmetics Enterprises in Guangdong Province (2026-2028)

Notice of the Office of Guangdong Provincial Drug Administration on Issuing the Three-Year Action Plan for Improving the Production Quality Management System of Cosmetics Enterprises in Guangdong Province (2026-2028)

To the market supervision administrations of all cities above the county level, the Commerce and Service Bureau of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, each drug inspection office of the Provincial Drug Administration, the Provincial Institute for Drug Control, the Provincial Bureau’s Evaluation and Certification Center (Drug Inspection Center), the Provincial Center for Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring, and the Provincial Bureau’s Affairs Center:

The ‘Three-Year Action Plan for Improving the Production Quality Management System of Cosmetics Enterprises in Guangdong Province (2026-2028)’ is hereby printed and distributed to you. Please implement it earnestly in light of actual conditions.

Office of Guangdong Provincial Drug Administration
March 23, 2026

Three-Year Action Plan for Improving the Production Quality Management System of Cosmetics Enterprises in Guangdong Province (2026-2028)

In order to thoroughly implement the requirements of the ‘Three-Year Action Plan for Improving the Production Quality Management System of Cosmetics Enterprises (2026-2028)’ issued by the General Office of the National Medical Products Administration (Drug Administration Comprehensive Cosmetics [2025] No. 70, hereinafter referred to as the ‘National Action Plan’) and the ‘Opinions of the National Medical Products Administration on Deepening the Reform of Cosmetics Regulation and Promoting High-Quality Development of the Industry’ (National Drug Administration Cosmetics [2025] No. 18), comprehensively strengthen the production quality management of cosmetics enterprises in our province, and promote the high-quality development of the cosmetics industry, this action plan is formulated in light of the actual conditions of our province.

I. Overall Requirements

(1) Guiding Ideology

Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, with the theme of promoting high-quality development of the cosmetics industry and the fundamental purpose of ensuring the safety of people’s cosmetics use, adhering to the principles of ‘government guidance, enterprise responsibility, social co-governance, and coordinated promotion’, fully benchmarking against the goals and tasks of the National Action Plan, we strive to promote the systematic and standardized improvement of the production quality management systems of cosmetics enterprises, build a new pattern of cosmetics industry development that is ‘safe and controllable, innovative and active, open and inclusive’, and promote the transformation of Guangdong’s cosmetics industry from ‘scale-leading’ to ‘quality-leading’ and ‘innovation-driven’, helping Guangdong become a strong province in cosmetics manufacturing and a quality benchmark, and effectively enhancing people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security in the field of cosmetics.

(2) Action Goals

By the end of 2028, the level of production quality management systems of cosmetics enterprises in the province will be significantly improved, and core competitiveness will be significantly strengthened. We strive to achieve the following goals:

1. The awareness of enterprise main responsibility is comprehensively enhanced. The understanding and performance ability of legal representatives and principal responsible persons of enterprises on quality and safety are significantly improved, the performance ability of key personnel is significantly enhanced, and a quality management system that is compatible with their production scale and product risks is established and effectively operated continuously.

2. The overall level of enterprise system operation is improved. The continuous standardized operation efficiency of production quality management systems of cosmetics enterprises in the province reaches a higher level, the self-inspection report system for production quality management is effectively implemented, and the risk control ability of key links is significantly enhanced.

3. The industrial quality foundation is more solid. A number of benchmarking enterprises with standardized production quality management system operation and strong quality and safety risk control capabilities emerge, driving the coordinated improvement of the upstream and downstream of the cosmetics industry chain, and significantly improving the concentration, quality competitiveness, and well-known brand power of the cosmetics industry.

4. Regulatory service capabilities are continuously optimized. The professional level and service ability of cosmetics regulatory teams at all levels in the province are continuously improved, regulatory coordination is more efficient, and a social co-governance pattern of enterprise responsibility, government supervision, industry self-discipline, public participation, media supervision, and legal guarantee is basically formed, forming a number of replicable and promotable cosmetics regulatory experience and practices.

II. Key Tasks and Implementation Measures

(1) Precise policy implementation to help enterprises upgrade their quality systems

1. Research common problems in quality system operation. The Provincial Drug Administration coordinates and organizes research work, and relevant directly affiliated units and municipal market supervision administrations are responsible for specific research on common problems in the quality system operation of cosmetics enterprises within their respective responsibilities. The focus of research on the construction and operation of quality systems of cosmetics enterprises in this administrative region includes but is not limited to: the completeness, applicability, and compliance of quality system documents with laws and regulations; the consistency of product production processes with the technical requirements specified in registration and filing materials; the compliance of raw material use; the performance of key personnel; the implementation of the quality system self-inspection system; the supervision of entrusted production behavior; and the implementation of the product release system. Before May 2026, relevant directly affiliated units and municipal market supervision administrations shall complete specific research work and submit research summary materials within their responsibilities to the Provincial Drug Administration; before June, the Provincial Drug Administration shall organize research and judgment on the collected problems, distinguish individual problems from common problems, focus on institutional and systemic weak links, establish a list of common problems, formulate solutions and a phased work schedule, and form a special research report. Combined with daily supervision work, through the preparation of policy Q&A and guidelines, organization of special training and interpretation, and carrying out enterprise publicity activities, the research on common problems, list updates, and publicity and guidance work shall be incorporated into the annual work plan of cosmetics supervision to form a normalized working mechanism.

2. Improve the mechanism for enhancing enterprise quality systems. Further improve the ‘three-in-one’ quality improvement mechanism led by the government, coordinated by associations, and implemented by enterprises, and innovate paths to effectively enhance the quality management system capabilities of small and medium-sized cosmetics enterprises through multi-party linkage. Improve the quality improvement assistance work guidelines and production quality management system templates, establish a ‘province-city-county’ three-level linkage mechanism, and implement precise measures such as ‘comprehensive diagnosis + one enterprise one policy + effect evaluation’; coordinate industry associations and other expert teams to go deep into enterprises, adopt the five-step working method of ‘comprehensive diagnosis – customized plan – training guidance – improvement and perfection – effect evaluation’, solve risk points such as people, machines, materials, methods, and environment with ‘one enterprise one policy’, implement assistance measures through the ‘awareness-ability-risk’ three-dimensional assistance mechanism, provide customized training services, and guide enterprises throughout the process to improve production quality management capabilities; enterprises shall fully cooperate with experts in production system evaluation, open workshops, provide system documents, accept quality diagnosis of all links, and under the guidance of the expert group, revise system documents for shortcomings, and finally form a quality management system template that is compliant with laws and regulations and operable, establish a ‘legal representative – quality safety responsible person – production department responsible person’ three-level responsibility system and a full-staff hierarchical training mechanism, and realize the upgrade of production quality management from ‘experience-led’ to ‘system control’, and the transformation of quality and compliance awareness from ‘passive execution’ to ‘active benchmarking’.

3. Enhance the performance ability of key personnel. Drug regulatory departments at all levels shall compact the main responsibility for quality and safety of cosmetics enterprises, and strengthen the responsibility awareness of key personnel (quality safety responsible persons, quality management department responsible persons, production department responsible persons, etc.). In daily supervision, the implementation of the cosmetics quality safety responsibility system and the performance of key personnel shall be included in the key points of supervision and inspection. We shall innovate supervision methods according to local conditions, and strengthen the training, publicity, and spot checks and assessments of key personnel. Establish provincial and municipal expert lecturer groups, and carry out systematic training on laws, regulations, standards, and quality management knowledge for key personnel such as legal representatives (or principal responsible persons) and quality safety responsible persons of enterprises through various forms such as online live broadcasts, offline tours, and centralized seminars. Encourage and support industry associations, technical institutions, colleges and universities, etc. to build an industry-university-research-application collaborative platform, provide technical consulting services such as quality management system diagnosis, evaluation, and improvement for enterprises, carry out public welfare training on quality management for cosmetics enterprises, and urge and guide enterprises to continuously improve quality management awareness.

4. Strengthen quality and safety risk prevention and control capabilities. Urge cosmetics enterprises to establish a dynamic management mechanism based on quality and safety risk prevention and control, and strictly implement work systems and mechanisms such as registration and filing material review, production consistency review, product batch-by-batch release, cause-triggered self-inspection, and quality system self-inspection. Compact the main responsibility of cosmetics registrants and filers for adverse reaction monitoring, establish and implement a cosmetics adverse reaction monitoring and evaluation system, equip with institutions and personnel suitable for their products to carry out cosmetics adverse reaction monitoring work, and enhance the awareness and ability of enterprises to monitor and report. Encourage enterprises to establish internal mechanisms for resolving product quality and safety risks, and encourage employees to actively discover and actively report hidden risks in the quality system. Enterprises shall dynamically, comprehensively, and consciously carry out self-inspection and self-correction of hidden risks and research and verification. For those that are verified to be true, they shall promptly rectify and take effective preventive measures. Municipal market supervision administrations shall explore the establishment of a risk communication mechanism for the operation of enterprise quality systems in their administrative regions, regularly organize exchanges among key personnel such as responsible persons and quality safety responsible persons of key enterprises, report the main problems and typical cases of quality system operation found in supervision, and urge enterprises to promptly conduct self-inspection and eliminate hidden risks.

(2) Optimize the environment to promote the high-quality development of the cosmetics industry

5. Optimize production quality management systems. Taking the opportunity of the implementation of the ‘Opinions of the National Medical Products Administration on Deepening the Reform of Cosmetics Regulation and Promoting High-Quality Development of the Industry’ (National Drug Administration Cosmetics [2025] No. 18), in response to several problems encountered since the implementation of the ‘Cosmetics Production Quality Management Standard’ and the ‘Key Points and Judgment Principles for Inspection of Cosmetics Production Quality Management Standard’, on the basis of full discussion and extensive solicitation of opinions, combined with regulatory practice, form specific implementation opinions on the applicability of laws and regulations, enterprises intentionally providing false information, production facilities and equipment that may affect product quality and safety, production process parameters and key control points of process, technical requirements specified in registration and filing materials, verification of main production processes, product release, purchased semi-finished products, purchased finished products, etc., reach a consensus on several issues in implementing the Cosmetics Production Quality Management Standard, take the lead in breaking the ice in institutional innovation, solve the real pain points and blockages of cosmetics enterprises, and provide reference for cosmetics registrants, filers, entrusted production enterprises, and drug regulatory departments in the cosmetics regulatory cooperation region, and explore the path for regulatory reform. Encourage enterprises to use intelligent and diversified production methods to improve production quality and efficiency, and the Provincial Drug Administration explores and studies the formulation of production quality management review requirements and inspection standards suitable for digital production of cosmetics.

6. Improve the efficiency of quality system supervision. Drug regulatory departments shall adhere to the problem-oriented approach, scientifically formulate enterprise inspection plans, and strengthen supervision over the construction and operation of enterprise quality systems. If defects are found in the quality system, urge enterprises to rectify within a time limit and effectively implement post-rectification supervision and review. If product quality and safety problems are found through inspection and monitoring, urge enterprises to immediately carry out self-inspection of the quality system operation and rectify existing problems in a timely manner. If illegal acts are found and the circumstances are serious, strictly implement the provisions of ‘penalties for illegal acts to individuals’, and deal with legal representatives, principal responsible persons, directly responsible supervisors, and other directly responsible personnel in accordance with the law.

7. Strive to build global leading cosmetics enterprises. Pay attention to supporting the cultivation of high-quality enterprises such as cosmetics industry chain leading enterprises, single champion enterprises, and specialized and innovative ‘little giant’ enterprises, expand new tracks, and focus on cultivating a number of ‘hidden champions’ and ‘specialized and innovative’ enterprises with core technologies in cosmetics raw materials, packaging materials, production and processing and other subdivided fields. Accelerate the construction of cosmetics manufacturing innovation centers, enterprise technology centers, and manufacturing pilot test platforms (bases), and promote the first launch, first use, and first trial of innovative achievements in Guangdong. Through scientific research innovation, digital transformation, and green low-carbon development, promote the transformation and upgrading of OEM enterprises, benchmark against international OEM giants, realize the transformation from ‘passive processing’ to ‘active empowerment’, and build ‘Guangdong OEM’ into a global benchmark of high quality and high reliability. Through combined measures such as policy guidance, standard leadership, and regulatory empowerment, help the cosmetics industry transform and upgrade to standardization, intelligence, and internationalization, and cultivate a number of cosmetics leading enterprises with complete quality systems, outstanding quality benefits, and international competitiveness.

8. Strive to cultivate global beauty brands. Increase industrial support, promote brand rise through policy empowerment, and cultivate national brand cosmetics with international competitiveness. Improve the ‘precise drip irrigation’ policy implementation mechanism, strongly promote the innovation and iteration of cosmetics industry technology and products, fully optimize varieties, improve quality, and create brands, continuously promote the industry-university-research cooperation mechanism of cosmetics, promote the integration of Cantonese culture, Chaoshan culture, traditional advantageous projects, and characteristic plant resources into product design and brand communication, create high-end ‘national trend’ brands of ‘Guangdong manufacturing’ with cultural heritage and global influence, promote the cosmetics industry from ‘large volume’ to ‘high quality’, drive Guangdong beauty products to ‘go global’, showcase the unique charm of ‘Beautiful Guangdong’ on the international stage, and create Guangdong brand cosmetics with international competitiveness.

9. Fully support the development of Guangzhou’s beauty industry. The Provincial Drug Administration will actively strive for the support of the provincial party committee and provincial government, coordinate relevant departments to introduce industrial support policies for cosmetics, and create a good industrial innovation environment. The Provincial Drug Administration will strengthen coordination with the Guangzhou municipal government, focus on supporting the construction of Guangzhou’s ‘International Beauty Bay’, and shape a regional public brand of cosmetics with national influence. Expand the influence of the ‘Guangzhou International Beauty Week’, build it into the ‘Canton Fair of the cosmetics industry’, attract international brands, R&D institutions, and design centers to settle in Guangdong, and encourage deep cooperation between foreign investment and local enterprises. Support enterprises to explore emerging markets, encourage industry associations and other organizations to provide one-stop services such as regulatory consulting, overseas warehouse construction, and cross-border payment, organize participation in internationally renowned exhibitions, and enhance the global visibility of Guangdong beauty.

10. Fully promote the empowerment of the beauty industry by science and technology. Take measures such as supporting innovation in cosmetics raw material technology, optimizing cosmetics registration and filing materials, and improving the quality and efficiency of technical review to bring new vitality to the innovation of the cosmetics industry; relying on the scientific research resources of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, jointly build high-level R&D platforms with top universities, research institutes, and leading enterprises on the basis of ‘Baiyun Beauty Bay’, closely track the breakthrough directions of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation in the cosmetics field, closely track frontier technology breakthroughs, market capital flows, consumer trend dynamics, and industrial development trends, focus on collaborative research in frontier fields such as biotechnology, new materials, and skin science, actively connect with the national bio-manufacturing strategy, break through core technologies such as synthetic biology active substances and green intelligent manufacturing of characteristic plant raw materials, and timely explore and judge new tracks of the cosmetics industry with characteristics of explosive growth in volume and significant improvement in quality. Comprehensively promote digital R&D methods such as AI-assisted formula design, big data consumer insight, and virtual simulation testing to improve R&D efficiency and accuracy. Integrate chemical resources in western Guangdong, promote the domestic substitution of basic raw materials, build a park-based and chain-based collaborative mechanism, break through the bottleneck of import dependence, and promote the transformation of the industry from scale expansion to value improvement.

11. Fully promote the advanced experience of benchmarking enterprises. Combined with daily supervision work, select a number of quality management benchmarking enterprises across the province, summarize and refine their excellent practical experience in system establishment, risk management, production process control, traceability system construction, etc., rely on mainstream media, drug safety publicity week and other platforms, promote through on-site observation, release of typical cases, and ‘entrepreneurs on the podium’ and other methods, promote active benchmarking and learning of advanced experience among enterprises, strengthen the internal drive of enterprises to improve quality systems, and strive to form a good situation of catching up and striving for excellence, driving small and medium-sized cosmetics enterprises to comprehensively improve the operation efficiency of production quality management systems and product quality and safety assurance capabilities. By the end of 2028, form at least 30 replicable and promotable typical experiences of quality system improvement and enterprise development across the province.

12. Fully build a social co-governance pattern. Basically form a social co-governance pattern of enterprise responsibility, government supervision, industry self-discipline, public participation, media supervision, and legal guarantee. Encourage industry associations to strengthen the standardized guidance of cosmetics enterprises, explore and study industry norms for key links such as raw material source control and production process control, develop training courses suitable for cosmetics enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to improve quality systems, build a public platform for experience sharing and information exchange among enterprises, and actively promote the successful practices of quality system construction of advanced enterprises. Give play to the bridge role of industry associations, establish an irregular risk communication mechanism, report risks and transmit pressure, and guide associations to help enterprises rectify. Follow the new era mass line, support news media to tell the story of Guangdong beauty high-quality development, fully tap the quality system culture of cosmetics enterprises, actively publicize excellent enterprises and advanced cases, enhance the reputation of Guangdong cosmetics and consumer confidence, and jointly create a market environment of survival of the fittest and pursuit of excellence. Support colleges and universities and research institutes to benchmark against industry needs, optimize the structure of disciplines and majors, and cultivate high-level and applied talents for cosmetics.

(3) Empowering development and promoting the improvement of regulatory service efficiency

13. Promote tiered and classified management. Drug regulatory departments at all levels shall improve the tiered and classified supervision mechanism for cosmetics enterprises, implement tiered and classified management for cosmetics enterprises in their administrative regions based on factors such as the construction of enterprise quality systems, risk prevention and control capabilities, and credit records, and study and formulate tiered and classified management systems, paying attention to the operability of the system. Drug regulatory departments at all levels may, in light of regulatory practice, deepen the connotation of ‘service-oriented supervision’, establish a normalized ‘government-enterprise face-to-face’ communication mechanism, implement ‘pre-guidance for regulatory policies’, and change from ‘post-investigation and punishment’ to ‘pre-service’. Implement the ‘Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Strictly Regulating Administrative Inspections Involving Enterprises’ (Guo Ban Fa [2024] No. 54), strictly regulate administrative inspections involving enterprises, resolutely curb random inspections, effectively reduce the burden on enterprises, coordinate routine inspections, licensing inspections and other types, implement ‘multi-in-one’ inspections, improve the quality of inspection work, prevent repeated inspections and multiple inspections, and for leading enterprises with good credit and excellent systems, mainly use ‘non-site inspections’ such as written inspections to achieve ‘no disturbance when there is no matter’.

14. Improve inspection standards. Study and sort out common problems in the application of the ‘Cosmetics Production Quality Management Standard’, and further unify inspection standards and scales through policy Q&A, training and publicity, typical case analysis, and other methods, and improve the scientific and standardized level of inspection. Closely pay attention to the new needs, new changes, and new concerns of industrial development, and further improve the relevant provisions on cosmetics production quality management according to regulatory needs. According to the actual development of the industry in their administrative regions, formulate guide manuals for the implementation of normative documents such as the ‘Cosmetics Production Quality Management Standard’, and strengthen the operability of the implementation of laws and regulations.

15. Strengthen smart supervision empowerment. Make every effort to build a full-chain smart supervision system for cosmetics, concentrate on building a cosmetics safety risk artificial intelligence early warning system with data aggregation, correlation and integration, risk research and judgment, and information sharing, transform from ‘traditional means’ to ‘smart supervision’, actively use big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies to improve the predictability, accuracy, and effectiveness of supervision. Integrate all-dimensional data of enterprises, products, personnel, supervision, consumption, etc., use big data models to achieve dynamic risk perception, intelligent research and judgment, and penetrating traceability of the entire chain from R&D, production to operation and use, truly realize the trigger warning and penetrating supervision of the entire chain of cosmetics R&D, production, operation, and use, form a coordinated and linked full-chain supervision system for cosmetics with artificial intelligence-assisted supervision as the core, and realize the closed-loop management of safety risks in the entire chain of cosmetics. Guide cosmetics enterprises to integrate new generation information technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things into the entire process of production quality management. Encourage enterprises to explore the construction of a full-chain intelligent control system from raw material entry, intelligent manufacturing to traceability management, consolidate the foundation of quality and safety with technological innovation, and enhance the core competitiveness of the industry.

16. Strengthen regulatory capacity building. Adhere to the professional direction and professional and technical requirements, increase the training of cosmetics regulatory personnel and inspectors, and comprehensively improve the comprehensive ability of regulatory personnel and inspectors in on-site inspection, risk identification, and compliance guidance through diversified training modes such as interpretation of laws and regulations, analysis of typical cases, simulated inspection training, and business skills competition. Drug regulatory departments at all levels shall ensure that personnel responsible for the quality and safety supervision of cosmetics enterprises receive no less than 20 hours of quality system-related training per person per year.

III. Safeguard Measures

(1) Strengthen organizational leadership. Drug regulatory departments at all levels shall fully understand the importance of the action to improve the quality system of cosmetics enterprises, regard it as a key task of regulatory work in the next three years, carefully organize, and firmly implement it to ensure the successful completion of all tasks and goals, and promote the safe, healthy, and high-quality development of the cosmetics industry in our province. The Provincial Drug Administration is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the provincial action plan, and municipal market supervision administrations shall ensure that responsibilities and measures are in place.

(2) Strengthen policy support. Actively strive for policy support from local governments and relevant departments for the high-quality development of the cosmetics industry. Encourage qualified cities to introduce supporting incentive measures, and commend or give policy preference to enterprises with remarkable achievements in quality management system improvement.

(3) Do a good job in publicity and guidance. Make full use of newspapers, periodicals, television, radio, websites, WeChat public accounts and other media platforms to vigorously publicize advanced models and successful experiences, and create a good public opinion atmosphere of government attention, enterprise participation, and social concern.

(4) Pay attention to summary and evaluation. Establish and improve the regular reporting and notification system for work progress. Drug regulatory departments at all levels shall promptly summarize and refine innovative practices and effective experiences in work, and solidify them into institutional norms or work guidelines, and establish a long-term mechanism for quality system improvement with enterprise responsibility, government supervision, and social co-governance. If major problems are encountered in work, report to the Provincial Drug Administration in a timely manner.