(Issued on May 21, 2008 in accordance with Decree No. 9 of the People’s Government of Guangzhou Municipality, amended for the first time on January 11, 2015 in accordance with Decree No. 116 of the People’s Government of Guangzhou Municipality and amended for the second time on September 30, 2015 in accordance with Decree No. 132 of the People’s Government of Guangzhou Municipality)

　　Article 1 These Rules are formulated in accordance with the Archives Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Archives Regulations of Guangdong Province, and other laws and regulations, on the basis of the actual conditions of the Municipality, and with a view to enhancing the management of archives and ensuring the complete collection, safe-keeping and effective use of archives.

　　Article 2 These Rules are applicable to the collection, management and utilization of archives within the administrative area of the Municipality.

　　Article 3 The people’s government at any level shall incorporate the construction of archives undertaking into the national economic and social development planning of the area under its jurisdiction, and raise and arrange funds for the development of archives undertaking in a unified way.

　　The people’s governments at any level shall incorporate the informational construction of archives into the local general informational construction planning, and establish a public archival information service system to improve the efficiency of utilization of archives.

　　Article 4 The municipal archives authority is in charge of archives work in the Municipality and responsible for organizing the implementation of these Rules.

　　The district archives authority is in charge of archives work in the administrative area of the district, and accepts the supervision by and guidance from the municipal archives authority.

　　Article 5 An organ, public body, enterprise, public institution or any other organization shall establish and improve its archives management system to manage its archives in a centralized and unified way, and shall provide everything necessary to ensure archives work is carried out according to law.

　　The archives of organs, public bodies, State-owned enterprises, public institutions and other State-owned organizations are regarded as State-owned assets.

　　Article 6 The national archive at any level is responsible for collecting and permanently keeping archives in various categories, and shall make such archives available to the public. The scope of archives to be collected by the national archive at any level shall be specified by the archives authority at the same level, and shall be announced and become effective after it is filed with and approved by the people’s government at the same level.

　　Each special archive is responsible for collecting and permanently keeping archives in a special field, and shall make such archives available to the public. The scope of archives to be collected by the special archive shall be specified by the authority in charge of the special archive, jointly with the municipal archives authority.

　　Each departmental archive is responsible for collecting and keeping archives created in the department and its subordinate agencies, and shall make such archives available to a certain group of people. The scope of archives to be collected by the departmental archive shall be specified by the department in charge of the departmental archive.

　　Article 7 An organ, public body, State-owned enterprise or public institution shall, within 3 months from the date of its establishment, set up an archives office or designate a special person to be in charge of its archives work.

　　Article 8 An organ, public body, enterprise, public institution or any other organization shall have full-time or part-time archives staff. Archives staff shall have professional knowledge and take on-job archives management training.

　　In case of job transfer, the handover person and the takeover person shall count and register archives in custody and conduct professional handover to ensure the continuity of archives work.

　　Article 9 The scope of archived electronic records and the storage period therefor shall comply with the provisions of the State concerning the scope of archived paper documentation and the storage period therefor. Electronic records shall be archived immediately upon creation. Electronic records of permanent or long-term value shall be converted into paper documentation and shall be archived together with the carrier of original electronic records to establish a correlation between the two. For the electronic video/audio records that cannot be converted into paper documentation, they shall be stored on magnetic media or CDs in a universal format in accordance with national standards, and be kept off-line.

　　The archived electronic records stored on magnetic media shall be shifted to another carrier every four years, and the original carrier shall continue to be kept for at least another four years. A sampling inspection by means of machine reading shall be conducted every two years for magnetic media or every four years for CDs, and the sampling rate is no less than 10%. If any problem is found, restoration measures shall be adopted timely to ensure the safety and validity of archived electronic records.

　　An organ, public body, enterprise, public institution or any other organization shall designate a relevant department or a special person to be in charge of its electronic record archiving work, and incorporate the management of electronic records into its documentation management system and relevant staff’s job duties.

　　The term “electronic record” herein refers to any document generated in digital equipment and environment, stored in digital form on magnetic tapes, magnetic discs, CDs or other carriers, read and processed by using computer or other digital equipment and transmittable on communication network.

　　Article 10 A State organ, public body, State-owned enterprise or public institution shall transfer archives in accordance with the following provisions:

　　(1) The archives included into the scope of collections of the national archive of the Municipality or any district shall be transferred to national archive at the same level within the time limit prescribed in the Archives Regulations of Guangdong Province;

　　(2) The archives included into the scope of collections for any special archive or departmental archive shall be transferred to a special archive or departmental archive respectively within the time limit specified in the Archives Regulations of Guangdong Province;

　　(3) Before June 30 of each year, the archived electronic records of the previous year shall be transferred to the national archives at the same level;

　　(4) The archives created in a major event sponsored or organized by a non-permanent establishment or a permanent establishment that does not meet conditions for archives management shall, within 3 months from the end date of the event, be transferred to the national archive at the same level; and

　　(5) The archives of any cancelled entity shall, within 3 months from the date of cancellation of the entity, be transferred to the municipal authority in charge of the entity, or transferred to the national archive at the same level if there is no such an authority in charge or if the authority in charge does not meet conditions for archives management;

　　The archives, which are included into the scope of collections of a national archive and are available to the public at any time according to law, may be transferred to the national archive at the same level in advance;

　　An entity shall strictly observe the time limit for transfer archives, and may not refuse to transfer archives for any reason.

　　Article 11 The national archive at any level shall establish and improve its own archives collection system, and shall generally collect and seek the following archives and documents:

　　(1) The archives and documents of local major events;

　　(2) The archives and documents of local famous people;

　　(3) The archives and documents created from any natural disaster, accidental disaster, public health incident, social safety incident or other incident that has a great impact in the region; and

　　(4) The archives and documents on local history with storage significance and local characteristics.

　　Article 12 A State organ, public body, State-owned enterprise or public institution shall, within 5 years after the creation or acquisition of the following materials or articles, transfer them to the national archive at the same level:

　　(1) Medals, cups, certificates of commendation, flags, honor certificates, gifts and other articles with storage significance granted or bestowed by the municipal/district people’s governments;

　　(2) Inscriptions, paintings, calligraphies, photos, sound recordings, visual recordings and other textural and audio/video materials created in an important international, nationwide or regional conference or a city-wide major event held in the Municipality; and

　　(3) Other materials and articles about the development of economic and social undertakings of the Municipality and with historical significance.

　　Article 13 An organ, public body, enterprise, public institution or any other organization shall, before June 30 of each year, report the electronic catalogue of archives to the competent national archive at the same level, unless otherwise provided for by the State.

　　A district national archive, municipal special archive or departmental archive shall, before August 30 of each year, report to the municipal national archive the electronic catalogue of archives and the electronic records has been made available to the public.

　　Article 14 The sponsor or organizer of a major event shall undertake the collection, arrangement and transfer of the event archives.

　　The sponsor or organizer shall, before holding the major event, notify the competent archives authority at the same level, and shall, jointly with the archives authority, formulate the scheme for collection of major event archives, identify the department and staff responsible for the management of major event archives, and have relevant protective measures in place.

　　The archives authority at the same level shall give guidance on the collection, arrangement, assessment and safe-keeping of archives.

　　The term “major events” herein includes:

　　(1) Party and government leaders’ important public affairs in the Municipality;

　　(2) Provincial leaders’ important public affairs in the Municipality;

　　(3) Municipal leaders’ important public affairs;

　　(4) The visit of foreign heads of state, heads of government, heads of party, heads of international organizations or famous foreign social activists in the Municipality and the important intercourse activities between friend cities and the Municipality; and

　　(5) Political, economic, scientific, technological, cultural, religious or public welfare events that have a great impact on the whole Municipality.

　　Article 15 In case of adjustments to administrative division or the establishment of, change in or cancellation of agencies, the relevant entities shall accept the supervision by and guidance from archives authorities in archives collection, sorting and filing, transfer archives to the competent national archives in accordance with relevant provisions of the State, Guangdong Province and the Municipality, and report the information about archives transfer to the competent archives authorities at the same level.

　　Article 16 In the event of acceptance check or assessment of any capital construction project, scientific and technological achievement, product trial-manufacturing, important equipment opening or other technological project, the entity shall notify its archives office to attend. The archives office shall check and inspect the archives of the project and confirm them with signature. If the project archives collected are incomplete or are not well-arranged, the archives office shall require them to make corrections.

　　If the department in charge of investment under the people’s government at any level organizes or appoints others to organize the acceptance check of any fixed asset investment project, the competent archives authority at the same level shall conduct an acceptance check of the archives of the project. Without going through/passing the acceptance check of archives, the owner of the project shall not conduct an acceptance check of the project, or accept the project.

　　Article 17 In the event that the archives of any non-State-owned entity have great significance to the State and the public, the entity shall file a catalogue of archives with the national archive in the place where the entity is located.

　　In the event that any enterprise, public institution or any other organization has any archives that have great significance to the State and the public, but does not meet the conditions for archives safe-keeping, such archives may be deposited with the national archive in the place where the organization is located.

　　Article 18 The construction of an archive shall comply with the requirements of the State concerning specifications and standards of archives building design, and the facilities and equipment of an archive shall meet the conditions for safekeeping of archives and for users’ convenience.

　　Any organ, public body, State-owned enterprise or public institution obligated to transfer archives to the municipal national archive according to law shall, based on the quantity of archives created each year, set up a store house where can store archives for no less than 20 years and other necessary office buildings; any organ, public body, State-owned enterprise or public institution obligated to transfer archives to the national archive of any district according to law shall, based on the quantity of archives created each year, set up a store house that can store archives for no less than 10 years and other necessary office buildings.

　　An archive shall properly keep the facilities and equipment for storing and managing electronic data to ensure the safety of archival information.

　　Article 19 An archive shall, in accordance with relevant provisions of the State, regularly disclose to the public the catalogue of archives that shall be made available to the public, and provide the users with retrieval, reading, copying and other public archives services.

　　The originals of the archives and documents made available to the public by each archive shall gradually be replaced with the copies thereof in an archival microform or other form; the originals of all old and significant archives and documents shall be replaced with copies thereof.

　　The national archive at any level, as a site where the disclosed information of the people’s government at the same level can be accessed, shall have corresponding facilities and equipment, and make use of field access and online access to make it convenient for the public to consult and use disclosed documents currently in force.

　　Article 20 An organ, public body, enterprise, public institution or any other organization shall incorporate the informational construction of archive into its informational construction planning, unify the design and implementation, further promote archives digitalization work, and realize the interconnection between the archives management system and its information system.

　　Each archive shall establish a public archival information service system and an archival information resource database to realize sharing of archival information resources step by step and make disclosed archival information resources in its custody available to the public according to law.

　　Article 21 The title to deposited archives belongs to the owner of deposited archives; without the consent or authorization of the owner of archives, no archive may make available or disclose to others such archives.

　　It is encouraged to make privately-owned archives available to the public.

　　Article 22 For archives made available to the public by each archive, fees may be charged at the rates prescribed by the State.

　　In the event that any organ, public body, enterprise, public institutions or any other organization or any individual intends to use the archives transferred, bestowed or deposited by it/him/her, the archive shall give priority to them and provide the archives to them free of charge.

　　Article 23 For any of the following acts, the competent archives authority or any other relevant authority under the people’s government at district level or above shall urge the violators to make corrections within a prescribed period of time, with a notice of criticism being sent to the violating entity or the relevant responsible personnel; in case of severe violation or failure to make corrections within the prescribed period of time, the appointing organ or the competent supervisory organ shall impose ex officio an administrative sanction on relevant responsible personnel.

　　(1) In violation of Article 5 herein, failing to establish its archives management system, or failing to manage its archives in a centralized and unified way;

　　(2) In violation of Article 6 herein, without the required approval, promulgating and implementing relevant provisions on the scope of collections of special archives;

　　(3) In violation of Article 9 herein, failing to establish an electronic records management system, or failing to archive or manage electronic records in accordance with relevant provisions;

　　(4) In violation of Article 10, 12 or 13 herein, failing to transfer within the prescribed time limit or refusing to transfer any archives, electronic records, or electronic catalogue of archives;

　　(5) In violation of Article 14 herein, in the case of the sponsor or organizer of a major event, failing to perform the obligations to collect, arrange or transfer archives of major events;

　　(6) In violation of Article 16 herein, carrying out an acceptance check of any important construction project without going through/passing the acceptance check of archives;

　　(7) In violation of Article 18 herein, failing to meet the required conditions for archives safe-keeping, thereby affecting the safety of archives; or

　　(8) Any other violation of any laws, regulations or rules concerning archives.

　　If any other law, regulation or rule stipulates any administrative sanctions against any acts in breach of archives management, such law, regulation or rule shall apply.

　　Article 24 An archive staff member who commits any of the following acts shall be imposed an administrative sanction by the competent archive authority, other relevant authority or the competent supervisor organ under the people’s government at district level or above ex officio according to law; if a crime is constituted, criminal liability shall be investigated:

　　(1) In violation of Article 19 herein, failing to disclosing to the public or making available archives in accordance with relevant provisions;

　　(2) In violation of Article 21 herein, disclosing to the public or making use of any deposited archives without the consent of the owner of deposited archives;

　　(3) Any other violation of archive law, regulations or rules that causes any loss of archives.

　　Article 25 These Rules shall come into force on July 1, 2008.