BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Three Chinese state organs recently urged online platforms to earnestly fulfill their responsibilities and standardize price competition practices.
The State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission held a meeting on Wednesday, which flagged price compliance problems among some platform companies. The meeting urged the firms to promptly rectify any misconduct, voluntarily uphold market order, and effectively curb price-related violations.
The meeting called on platform companies to strictly regulate subsidy practices and curb malicious price competition, noting that they must not make false or exaggerated claims about the scale or intensity of their subsidies.
Platform companies should fully respect merchants' independent pricing rights and are strictly prohibited from interfering in pricing behavior, according to the meeting. It also said that firms should better safeguard consumers' legitimate rights and interests, refrain from charging unlisted fees, and avoid false promotions, price fraud and other forms of misconduct.
During the meeting, market regulators said that they will continue to strengthen oversight of price competition and step up efforts to address rat race competition, in a bid to foster a market environment characterized by fair competition.
In December 2025, the three state organs jointly issued a set of guidelines on online platforms' pricing practices. The guidelines are set to take effect on April 10 this year and remain valid for five years.
Maintaining fair market competition is a key task highlighted in the outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). The outline calls for improving market regulation rules, unifying standards and enhancing regulatory capabilities to foster a market order characterized by high quality, fair pricing and healthy competition. ■
