Since the reform of marine monitoring system in 1998, China's marine work in management systems, legal systems, monitoring capacities, infrastructures, and staff members has entered a new stage.

First, the reform of marine monitoring system has been completed comprehensively, and integrated marine institutions have been established.

Central vertical management system "monitoring system for all waters and every harbor" have came into operation at coastal waters and harbors, opening waters to cross-province, cross-autonomous region and cross-municipality, including main areas of inland waters; local government-controlled management systems are applicable to inland rivers, lakes, reservoirs, in addition to central government-controlled waters. Fourteen Maritime Safety Administrations have been established in central government-controlled waters and 27 provincial maritime institutions have also been established in local waters. The integrated outlay of "unify decrees, deploys and supervision" has come into being.

Secondly, marine legal system framework has been preliminarily established, and governance has also been improved.

Enhance marine legislation degree. We have issued Marine Regulation System Framework, by directly and indirectly participated in constructing and modifying more than 50 marine laws, regulations, and rules including Marine Environment Protection Law and Regulation of the Administration of Traffic Safety on Inland Waters; Maritime Traffic Safety Law, Seafarer Ordinance, Marine Pollution Prevention Ordinance have been submitted to the State Council; such marine laws and policies as Ship Law, Marine Search and Rescue Ordinance, Ordinance of Management in Salvaging of Sunken Ships and Sunken Articles, Regulations on the Investigation and Handling of Maritime Traffic Accidents, Ship Registration Ordinance, Regulations on Examination of Ships and Marine Facilities et al. are in the process of draft and modification; Administration Punish Regulation for Water Safety Supervision Administration Regulations for the Safety Supervision of Roll on and Roll off Ships, Administration Regulation on the Safety Supervision of Shipping Dangerous Goods et al. are completed. There are now more than 800 laws, regulations and normative documents on marine administration and law enforcement. Provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions also carry out a series of regulations and normative documents with local features. The system of public and transparent governance has been applied to the national maritime system.

Supervision on maritime administration and law enforcement has been strengthened; responsibility assigning mechanisms of law enforcement, faults, and administration system of law enforcement staff's qualifications have taken effect.

Thirdly, stereoscopic and a rapid monitoring system have achieved initial success, as water safety continues to be stable

MSA has implemented the shipping line formulating system and ship report system in coastal waters, such as  Chengshantou, lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and Three-gorge reservoirs and the Pearl River. Stereoscopic patrol is also underway and hot line "12395" for marine rescue has been opened.. In the tenth "Five Year Plan", a total of 4,109 large search and rescue missions were completed; rescuing boats and planes totaled 10,799 and 161 respectively, of 52559 emergency rescue attempts, 55,880 people were saved -- both domestic and international -- a success rate of 93.6%.

MSA conducted supervision over the managerial process of ship-examining institutions; completed the certificate approval authorized to ship-examining institutions in marine areas; maintained that surveyors must be certified and responsible for faults. 1300 international voyage ships owned by 170 companies have been brought into the management system of ISM regulations. The safety management system has been conducted nationwide with a few ship enterprises having already established the system; promotion of the tracking system on key ships and the management system of ship's safety conducted. China's international voyage ships have been consecutively ranked amongst the top of the white lists announced by major international harbor supervision organizations.

MSA has strengthened the supervision of "four regions and one line" key waters, of "four types of passenger vessels and ships carrying dangerous goods" and of peak times in public holidays; strictly penalized those ships without legal certificates, freight ships carrying passengers,  overloading ships, or low-quality ships; urged governments at county or town level to implement the responsibility mechanism of ship's safety management and enhance the public's awareness of the law; raised the awareness of social security and solved complex issues that affect management of the safety of water transportation.

Special trainings for seafarers sailing on international lines and domestic coastal lines have been conducted and seafarers are urged to keep their due competence and improve China's seafarers' capability.  MSA issues and implements the scoring management rules for seafarers' violation of regulations, and has established the rules for professional and special trainings and outlines of test trainings; organized seafarers to finish their transition trainings and tests before they fulfill their contracts; enhanced the management of institutions providing education and training to seafarers currently’ pursued the guidelines of "prevention first and integrating prevention with control"; enhanced the supervision and management of ships transporting dangerous goods and of waters that are prevented from marine pollution; worked out the oil contingency plan for ships and key coastal waters; promoted the establishment of the national oil contingency plan which is solely controlled by the local government.

The rate of navigation marks in function, stable maintenance and of signals all reach the standard stipulated by Ministry of Transport; developed and applied electronic sea maps, and authored the sea maps of open coastal harbors and key waterways. The hydrographic emergency reaction capacity has been enhanced and facilitated to successfully and precisely fix positions and arrange emergency marks in several devastating accidents such as the "5.7" air disaster.

Overall, under the condition of rapid growth of water transport economy and significant increases in the volume of freight handled, the water transport safety condition remains stable. Compared with the four indexes in the ninth "Five Year Plan", the accident rate decreased by 33.3%, death rate by 24.4%, the wreckage rate by 25.7%, and the loss rate increased by 37.6% in the tenth "Five Year Plan". During this period, several unexpected marine risks have been avoided and several serious marine pollution accidents have been handled efficiently.

Fourthly, marine infrastructure construction has been accelerated, and marine supervision means have been improved obviously.

Construction of advanced technologies like VTS, AIS, and CCTV has been enhanced in key waters. Currently, main harbors and important sailing waters own 26 VTS centers and 73 radar stations; AIS centers have also been established in the waters of the Yangtze River, Pear River, Bohai Sea Bay, and Qiongzhou Strait. Airplanes have also been used in stereoscopic supervision. Two patrol ships weighing over 2000 tons, a series of patrol boats and navigation marks of 60 meters, 40 meters, 30 meters or below, and survey dinghies have been established.

Buildings for maritime operation and docks for working boats have been constructed. Modern technologies such as satellite positioning, radio telemetry, energy-saving light source, solar battery and multi-beams have been widely used in marine safeguard. Information trunk net of maritime system has been established, and a series of applying software for maritime operations have been developed; information sources have been organized and dispersed; a supplemental decision system has been developed as well. Local maritime institutions have made positive efforts to gain governments' financial support, leading to the monitoring facilities such as houses for marine operations, monitoring boats and cars have been improved, which has lead to the improvement of supervision capability.

Lastly, maritime staff members'qualification has been enhanced, and the social influence of maritime system has advanced.

MSA has finished the reorganization of maritime institutions under direct control of the ministry and local maritime institutions. Maritime institutions set strict limitations to recruitment. Anyone interested in becoming a maritime staff member should take related examinations. A goal set to drastically improve officers' qualifications triennially has been met; the mechanism of two-way selection centered on appraisal and appointment system has been applied.

As to those know law enforcement institutions such as navigation survey, telecommunication and services department, the appointment system has been changed into a systematic system. Local maritime institutions have made great progress in absorbing talents and enhancing staff's education and training. The quality of staff members has therefore been further enhanced. New progress has also been made in establishing civil units and demonstration windows of law enforcement. Along with the enhancement and promotion of the cultural construction and the establishment of an honest and clear party, the national maritime system's influence has been significantly strengthened.