1.3 Adequacy of technical guidelines	l General TG is supplemented with specific guidelines for all environmental components and some industries.	l Too inflexible, result in unnecessary work.
1.4 Guidance for EIA implementation at the local level	l Exists regulations at the provincial level.	l Needs to be revised frequently.
1.5 Formal provisions for SEA	l Regulations on Planning EIA was issued in 2009.	l Lacks supporting laws to guide the implementation of Planning EIA.
2. Administrative set up
2.1 Specified EIA review body	l For EIR and EIF: (1) state environmental protection authority (MEE), (2) provincial, autonomous regions’ EPBs, (3) municipal, county EEPBs. For EIRF, online registration is required.	/
2.2 Existence of supervision authority	l MEE and EEPBs at different levels	l Vertical management reform of environmental monitoring and law enforcement departments under improving.
2.3 Specification of industry authorities’ responsibility	l The pre-review of EIR for some industries was canceled since 2017.	/
3. EIA process
3.1 Specified screening categories	l List and threshold approach. Projects are classified into three categories: A, B and C, according to their projects’ features.	l Although the assessment methodologies are more specific, some regulations are too inflexible. It may lead to unnecessary work.
3.2 Systematic scoping approach	l Identifies the evaluation factors and working levels I-III following TGs, which decides the evaluation scope and ambient standard.	l Too inflexible
3.3 Requirement for impacts prediction	l Evaluation of environmental status and project engineering analysis; Analyzes each pollution-producing node in production techniques and ecological impacts; Evaluates the monetary value of environmental protection measures cost-benefit analysis.	l Too inflexible
3.4 Specified EIS content	l Required in article 17 of EIA Law.	l Too inflexible
3.5 Systematic decision-making approach	l Adopts technical review meetings. Article 11 of REPMCP lists the conditions of not giving EIA approval.	/
3.6 Requirement for monitoring	l Randomly on-site investigation of projects, periodically selective examination of EISs and real-time monitoring of pollutant emission.	/
3.7 Public participation in the EIA process	l Public participation almost covers the whole EIA process.	l Not explicitly declare the environmental right of citizens.
3.8 Requirement to consider alternatives	l Focuses on technical options.	l No consideration of “without project” or “delay the project”.
3.9 Requirement for EIA follow-up	l Article 27 of EIA Law If the construction and operation of projects are inconsistent with EIA requirements, the EIA follow-up needs to be conducted.
Foundation measures
4.1 Systematic supervise measures	l The interim and post-event supervision has been strengthened.
4.2 Effective warning and deterrent of penalties	l The penalties are more severe than before.	l Exists problems at implementation.
4.3 Existence of legislative provisions for appeals	l The Law of Executive Accusation is suitable for EIA appeal.	l The amount of lawsuit is low. The percentage of developers or public winning the lawsuit is low.