Ten major events in engineering survey and design industry in 2023

This newspaper reviewed and sorted out the major events in the survey and design industry in 2023, and sorted out ten major events to reflect the trends and trends of the industry from the media perspective.

On October 13, 2023, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development released the 2022 National Engineering Survey and Design Statistical Bulletin, and several key indicators showed a decline, including engineering survey revenue decreased by 2.3%, design revenue decreased by 2%, and the newly signed contract amount of engineering design decreased by 0.9%, which is the first time in the survey and design industry in the past 20 years. Affected by the epidemic situation in the past three years, the business of survey and design enterprises has generally declined significantly, especially in private enterprises. Although a series of investment and major projects have been released at the national level, there has not been a fundamental improvement, and the industry may enter a downward turning point.

On January 30, 2023, Ni Hong, Minister of Housing and Urban Rural Development, proposed to "let people live in better houses" to build "good houses" to promote the high-quality transformation and upgrading of real estate. On August 31, the National "Good House" Design Competition hosted by the China Association of Survey and Design was launched. With the theme of "new design, new housing and new life", the competition created a "real topic, real competition and real construction" model, aiming to promote high-quality construction with high-quality design, create a "good house" model, and promote high-quality development of housing and urban and rural construction.

Since 2023, Shanghai, Shandong, Hainan, Tibet, Xi'an and other places have issued documents to promote the pilot project of architect responsibility system. Since 2023, Shanghai has made every effort to accelerate the pilot work of the architect responsibility system, and introduced the "1+X" policy, including the implementation method of the architect responsibility system in Shanghai, the work guide, the demonstration text of bidding documents, sorting out the list of pilot projects, carrying out cost estimation, preparing to build an expert consulting team and establishing an assessment mechanism, improving the functions of the information platform, and initially establishing a basic framework.

On August 1, 2023, the group standard of the China Association of Survey and Design, the Whole Process Engineering Consulting Service Regulations, was released. It took three and a half years to prepare the Regulations, which incorporated the "FIDIC white paper+international professional architect system+foreign aid project model" and German standards, and formed two main lines of design consultation and project management. On the main line of design consultation, the two core new concepts of "comprehensive feasibility study" and "design definition document" are proposed, and it is advocated to take design as the guide, give full play to the integration advantages of the design link for the professional technology, engineering information and engineering resources of engineering construction, and penetrate every link of China's fragmented engineering consultation and engineering construction industry chain.

At the end of November 2022, ChatGPT exploded rapidly, refreshing the cognition of large model capability. In March 2023, GPT-4 was released, and the mastery of generative AI AIGC became the core competence of a new round of competition in the design industry. AIGC tools have the creative ability to generate intention maps from short demand instructions to render renderings based on sketches. Design enterprises have responded to this and asked designers to master them as soon as possible to improve their creative level and design efficiency. AI may become a new engine for industry change.

On March 14, 2023, Shanghai launched the first activity of cultivating and selecting engineering survey and design masters. This is the first time that Shanghai, the first tier urban design capital, has been carried out in nearly 20 provinces and cities in China for many years. Finally, 30 of them were selected, filling the gap in the selection of Shanghai's top design talents, and also representing the rise of personal brands. In the future industry competition, the phenomenon of leading talent competition will emerge suddenly from the competition of enterprises' technical strength and brand influence.

On October 31, 2023, UNESCO announced that Chongqing was officially selected as the "City of Design", becoming the fifth "City of Design" in China and the first "City of Design" in western China. Chongqing has more than 300 design parks (bases), including industrial design, engineering design and fashion design. It has established industrial design centers and research institutes at various levels from the national level to the district and county level, with sales revenue of design products exceeding 210 billion yuan. According to the Action Plan for Chongqing to Create a "City of Design", by 2025, Chongqing will have more than 5 municipal industrial design institutes, one national industrial design institute will be selected and cultivated, more than 15 national industrial design centers and more than 250 municipal industrial design centers will be built, and more than 500 industrial design related institutions and enterprises will be gathered. Chongqing will also implement the concept of "industrial design+", combine design with rural revitalization, urban renewal, culture and art, and cultivate design ecology.

On September 6, 2023, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development issued a notice to strengthen the qualification approval management of construction engineering enterprises, withdraw the approval authority of pilot areas, increase dynamic verification efforts, and strengthen the assessment of registered personnel. On October 16, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development issued a notice specifying that engineering survey and design enterprises need to submit an application for renewal of their qualifications, which can only be renewed after being verified as qualified. This is the first "brake" since the automatic renewal policy in 2020. New qualification standards or "stillborn" standards that have been consulted for many times.

On December 1, 2023, the restructuring and listing of the subsidiary of China Communications Construction Corporation will be completed. CCCC Highway Planning and Design Institute Co., Ltd., CCCC First Highway Survey, Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd., CCCC Second Highway Survey, Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. and China Municipal Engineering Southwest Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. under China Urban and Rural Holding Group Co., Ltd China Municipal Engineering Northeast Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. and CCCC Urban Energy Research and Design Institute Co., Ltd. become wholly-owned subsidiaries of the listed company Gansu Qilianshan Cement Group Co., Ltd., and Qilianshan is proposed to change its name to "CCCC Design Consulting Group Co., Ltd.", the securities are referred to as "CCCC Design", and the registered capital is proposed to be changed to 2.062 billion yuan. "CCCC Design" is expected to become the largest design company in the A-share market.

As the industry continues to decline, mergers, acquisitions, reorganization and cooperation have become new driving forces for the development of design enterprises.

In 2023, China Energy Engineering North China Institute entered the new track of urban construction by acquiring 78% of the equity of Xiangtan Planning and Architectural Design Institute, and Xiangtan Institute also realized the preservation and appreciation of state-owned assets, transformation and upgrading; Zhongshe Consulting acquired 51% equity of Zhongkai Testing to expand green building testing business; Jinan Municipal Design Group and Inspur Group signed a strategic contract to explore the digital transformation in the municipal field; Shanshui Bide and China Railway Shanghai Engineering Bureau signed a strategic contract to unite with each other in urban renewal, rural revitalization and other fields; The East China Institute of Huajian Group and the Architectural Institute of Chengdu Design&Consulting Group signed a strategic contract to expand cooperation in urban planning, BIM, EPC projects, dual carbon business, regional comprehensive development, urban renewal and other fields; Central South Architectural Design Institute and Belarusian National Design Institute have signed a strategic contract to share resources with each other in resources, brands, talents, technology, management and other aspects... In addition, the "Matthew effect" of the construction industry has intensified, and the market share of the eight construction central enterprises and local state-owned enterprises has increased year by year, with a total of more than 50%. Many small and medium-sized private enterprises are listed to seek state-owned enterprises or listed companies to acquire equity for survival and development, while state-owned enterprises and local investment companies also have plans and needs to acquire design enterprises to expand the industrial chain and optimize the capital layout.