We have had several inquiries from companies seeking to become a qualified enterprise operating the Class A Mapping business within China.
Such business is not rare in China, according to the latest name list published by the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinfomation, there are 898 companies holding Class A Mapping Licence in China by 2015, wherein Beijing has 107 companies holding Class A Mapping Licence. For Class B Mapping Licensed companies, the statistic shows that there are 3122 companies in China and 138 companies in Beijing which has such licence.
There are 4 classes for mapping licence in total. The Class A Mapping Licence is supervised and approved/granted by the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinfomation, while the other 3 classes are governed by the Administrative department of Surveying, Mapping and Geo information at provincial level. Companies should get licences for different levels in sequence, D, C, B then A. Cross level application will not be allowed.
To get a Class A Mapping Licence, the company shall meet following conditions:
1. Having the legal person status of an enterprise or institution;
2) Having the professional technical personnel compatible with the conduction of surveying and mapping; (The professional technical personnel conducting surveying and mapping shall have the corresponding practice qualification. Surveying and mapping personnel shall conduct surveying and mapping work with surveying and mapping work certificates. The ID Certificate, Graduation Certificate, Qualification Certificate, Labor Contract and Social Insurance payment certificate shall be submitted for examination during application.);
3) Having the technical equipment and facilities compatible with the conduction of surveying and mapping; (ownership certificate of equipment shall be submitted during application. It is required to have enough working place, at least 600㎡, to operate mapping business, and certificate of such working place shall also be submitted during application.);
4) Having a sound technical and quality guarantee system and the management system of surveying and mapping results and the materials and archives; (Regarding the mapping results, applicants shall submit their former performance and capability certification, which shows that the total value of mapping services completed in recent 2 years is not less than RMB 16,000,000, and there are more than 3 surveying and mapping projects are successfully passed the investigation and are qualified by Quality Agency recognized by the geoinformation administration at provincial level.)
Also, there are many mapping companies publicly traded in China. For example, Beijing Unistrong Science & Technology Co., Ltd (stock code: 002383); Beijing SuperMap Co., Ltd. (stock code: 300036);
Beijing NavInfo Science and Technology Co., Ltd. (Stock code: 002405);
Beijing Egova Science and Technology Co., Ltd. (Stock Code: 300075)
Only domestic companies and JVs in which the foreign shareholding is less than 50% are allowed to conduct mapping and conveying business after acquiring approval and licence from competent authorities. In practice, the government restricts foreign surveying and mapping business. In the December of 2016, the competent authority, i.e. the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinfomation issued its notice on further strengthening the administration of foreign-related surveying and mapping, and it requires all the companies holding any class mapping licence to complete a survey table to report their foreign related issues including whether the percentage of the foreign shareholding, direct/indirect holding of shares by any foreign investor, any foreign actual controller, VIE mode of operation and whether the parent company is foreign related, etc.
Therefore, if you would like to engage in mapping or conveying business, get a Chinese partner and find a professional China lawyer will be your first step to take.