Beijing, September 22, 2025 — China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has pledged to step up antitrust enforcement and fair competition measures as part of a sweeping effort to implement inspection-driven reforms mandated by the country’s political leadership.
According to a progress report on the Central Committee’s latest inspection round, SAMR has intensified its crackdown on monopolistic practices in the platform economy and introduced new tools to ensure fairer markets. Regulators have targeted issues ranging from algorithmic discrimination, or “big data price discrimination,” to abusive platform subsidies and unfair online competition.
SAMR said it is bolstering merger review and antitrust case-handling capacity, including launching the “Antimonopoly Lecture Series” and “Merger Review Classroom” to train enforcement officials, and building a national pool of antitrust enforcement talent.
In addition, the authority is working on upgrading its merger review case system, and planning to publish new Horizontal Merger Review Guidelines and penalty benchmarks for unlawful concentrations. The regulator also pledged to prioritize major monopoly cases, with local enforcement officials seconded to Beijing for complex investigations.
The report highlighted SAMR’s continued oversight of digital platforms, with focused actions against algorithm-driven abuses. SAMR has issued guidance on compliance obligations for online trading platforms, created a system for mandatory compliance data reporting, and coordinated special enforcement campaigns on platform subsidies and unfair practices.
Officials noted that companies were summoned for “big data price discrimination” rectification plans, with deadlines set for compliance.
Alongside enforcement, SAMR has pushed forward with the creation of a “unified national market”, rolling out new fair competition review regulations and reforms to ease cross-provincial business registration.
Separately, the authority launched Fair Competition Review Online Classroom this week on its online learning platform, offering regulators across the country a new digital resource to strengthen professional training in market oversight.
Source: https://www.samr.gov.cn/xw/zj/art/2025/art_a5949a588b54450a92a75a91841ace3e.html
