The State Council issued a guideline as the Implementing Opinions on Further Optimizing the Business Environment to Better Serve Market Players (the "Opinions").
The Opinions stresses six categories of policies and measures, including more streamlined and efficient approval procedures for construction projects and their financing, easier approval processes and conditions for enterprises generally, and an optimized business environment for foreign trade and investment.
- to continuously improve the investment and construction facilitation;
Starting from the "one thing" in the early stage of the project, the government will improve the coordination mechanism between the departments, strengthen the connection between project approval and land use, planning and other construction conditions, and promote the project units to compile a set of materials for the project feasibility study, land pre examination, site selection, environmental impact assessment, safety assessment, water and soil conservation assessment, and assessment of important mineral resources.
- to simplify the approval and conditions of enterprise production and operation;
The Opinions states that the market-entry threshold should be further lowered for the education, medical services and sports sectors, among others, and unreasonable barriers should be removed.
The Opinions focuses on clearing up the unreasonable conditions set by relevant departments and localities for enterprise qualification, capital, and share ratio in terms of market access, list relevant ledgers and clarify the resolution measures, liability subjects and time limit for the completion item by item.
- to optimize the business environment of foreign-funded enterprises and foreign trade enterprises;
"Advance declaration" of import and export goods shall be carried out. Enterprises shall go through the declaration procedures in advance, and the customs shall handle the goods inspection and release procedures immediately after the goods arrive at the customs supervision workplace.
Efforts will be made to support export products of foreign trade enterprises for domestic sales, implement self-declaration of foreign trade enterprises to replace relevant domestic certifications, and allow foreign trade enterprises to directly sell products that have obtained relevant international certifications and whose certification standards are not lower than domestic standards after making a written commitment on the compliance with domestic standards.
- to lower the threshold for employment and entrepreneurship;
Promote the flow of talents and flexible employment. By the end of June 2021, cross regional online verification of professional title information will be realized, and mutual recognition of professional titles among regions will be encouraged. The government should guide the enterprises with demand to carry out "shared employment", and improve the efficiency of human resource allocation by adjusting the surplus labor shortage.
On the premise of ensuring the safety and quality of medical treatment, the government will further expand the scope of Internet diagnosis and treatment.
- to improve the quality and efficiency of enterprise-related services;
The government will make it easier for enterprises’ establishment. The government will fully implement the whole process online registration of enterprises, improve the intelligent level of enterprise name self application system, and accelerate the application of electronic business license and electronic seal in the service fields of taxation, human resources and social security, provident fund and commercial banks. The government will relax restrictions on the registration and operation places of SMEs and individual businesses. The government will explore and promote the reform of "one industry, one license", integrate multiple licenses involved in an industry access into one license, so as to realize "one license for business operation" and cross regional mutual recognition. The government will speed up the promotion of cross provincial government services.
The government will further improve the efficiency of trademark registration. By the end of 2020, the average review period of trademark registration will be reduced to less than 4 months.
- to improve the long-term mechanism for optimizing the business environment.
The government should pay close attention to the implementation of preferential policies for enterprises. The government should realize the exemption from declaration and direct enjoyment of the policy for the qualified companies by government departments through information sharing.
If you want to read the complete article, you can refer to the below link (in Chinese only): http://www1.shanghaiinvest.com/cn/viewfile.php?id=15110
If you have any question, please contact me.
Mr. Mike Chang
TEL: 0086-21-68868321 / FAX: 0086-21-68868021