Chen Cong, member of Party Committee and Deputy Director General of Wuhan Urban and Rural Construction Bureau, Zhang Quansheng, Deputy General Manager of Wuhan Urban Construction Group, and Zhang Dongjing, Vice President of Hubei Lawyers Association, delivered speeches. It is hoped that by focusing on the industry forefront, gathering wisdom, innovatively exploring pricing method of general contract, and promoting the transformation of project cost service and supervision and management mode, the Forum will help construction enterprises better use arbitration and other diversified dispute resolution mechanisms to prevent and resolve risks, and jointly facilitate the implementation of the pilot pricing reform in Wuhan.

The keynote speech session was chaired by Liu Leyang, Assistant Secretary-General of CIETAC Hubei Sub-Commission. With the theme of "Properly Resolving Engineering Disputes through Multiple Measures", Yang Fan, Secretary-General of CIETAC Hubei Sub-Commission briefed on China's construction and engineering arbitration cases in 2022 and CIETAC’s construction and engineering cases in the past five years. She said that the recent years have witnessed an increase in construction and engineering disputes, which require high professionality and involve large amount of disputes, multiple parties and complicated legal relations. As a vital component of diversified dispute resolution, arbitration has outstanding advantages such as expert judgment, confidentiality and cross-border enforcement, which perfectly meet the needs of construction and engineering dispute resolution. CIETAC has rich experience in construction and engineering dispute resolution, and handles disputes by flexible means such as arbitration, mediation and dispute review. At present, CIETAC has nearly 400 arbitrators specialized in construction and engineering, covering project bidding, construction management, completion settlement, etc. CIETAC published the Construction Dispute Review Rules, combining permanent review and temporary review, and has successfully resolve a dispute with huge amount. She hopes that this Forum will further strengthen communication among the construction industry, contribute to healthy development of the construction industry, and help improve the level of construction legal services.

Zhang Xiang, head of the Secretariat of Wuhan Arbitration Commission Office, delivered a speech on " Practical Analysis of General Contract Industry Chain Cases of Wuhan Arbitration Commission in 2023". He briefed on the construction and engineering cases accepted by Wuhan Arbitration Commission in recent years, and the common practice of general contract industry chain in arbitration.

Zhu Jiefeng, Director of Hubei Construction Standard Quota Management Station, delivered a speech on "Mediation and Arbitration of Construction and Engineering Pricing Disputes". He briefed on the functions and business development of the provincial construction standard quota management station. He also summarized key issues in the current project pricing and settlement disputes from three aspects: lack of legal basis for project pricing, wide fluctuation of market prices and difficult implementation of supporting policies.

Li Lingyun, Secretary-General of Legal Committee of Wuhan Construction Industry Association and Director of Construction and Engineering Dispute Mediation Center of Wuhan Construction Association, delivered a speech on "Fully Utilizing Advantages of Industry Associations to Resolve Construction Disputes". He analyzed the characteristics of construction and engineering disputes from the perspective of industry association. By introducing advantages and expertise of the Construction and Engineering Dispute Mediation Center, he called for construction enterprises to make good use of mediation to resolve disputes.

Wu Shifeng, President of Wuhan Construction and Engineering Pricing Management Association, delivered a speech on "Promoting Accurate Pricing through Legal Justice". He said that "law + pricing" is the key to resolving engineering disputes, which will not only solve new problems relating to pricing and settlement, but also solve complex problems in construction and engineering pricing and investment control. He suggested to make full use of cloud computing technology to achieve data sharing and collaborative management, and improve the overall economic benefits and management efficiency of the project.

Xie Hongxue, Executive Deputy Director of China Pricing Association Expert Committee, delivered a speech on "Applying General Contract Pricing Standard and Balancing Risk Bearing between Contracting Parties". From the perspective of pricing standard makers, he analyzed the logic and risk control of general contract pricing and offered application suggestions. He proposed that construction pricing practitioners should establish a general contract mind, standardize contract terms, timely release price index and other supporting measures to improve the level of contract management.

Li Qian, General Legal Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer of Wuhan City Construction Group and CIETAC arbitrator, delivered a speech on “Problems and Legal Measures for Domestic General Contracting Practice”. He sorted out a number of problems in the current domestic general contracting practice, such as the lack of upper law, lack of deep integration of design and construction, whether engineering survey should be included in the general contract, and obstacles of direct application of judicial interpretation into construction contracts, and put forward targeted measures and suggestions.

Wei Jie, Director of Hubei Chenfeng Law Firm, delivered a speech on "Interpretation on General Contract Pricing Norms through Cases". By analyzing cases, he summarized typical characteristics of the current EPC mode from bidding, performance, settlement and other aspects. He also shared insights on new, difficult and frontier problems in agency disputes.

Wang Xianwei, Director of Shanghai Kehui Law Firm, delivered a speech on "Dispute Resolution of EPC Pricing and Settlement". He briefed on typical disputes relating to qualitative determination of project general contract, overall requirements of EPC contractor, settlement of project general contract, and consortium cooperation. He pointed out that legislation on EPC is lagging behind at this stage.