Policies

Deepening reforms in the business sector to reenergize enterprises

2020-9-14 11:36:43

On September 4, the State Council Information Office of China held a policy briefing, where among others, Tang Jun, deputy director of the State Administration for Market Regulation, introduced how deepening reforms in the business sector reenergized enterprises as a whole and took questions from the media.

The business system reform represents a critical decision made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, and part of the proactive efforts to advance reforms to streamline administration and delegate power, improve regulation and upgrade services. To date, the reform separating permits from the business license has been implemented in 18 pilot free trade zones on a trial basis and starting a business via a single website has been available across 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government as well as Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Under such efforts, the time needed to begin a business has shortened to less than five working days. In terms of business cancellation, the single website service, coupled with interdepartmental coordination, has been provided, which reduces difficulties in this respect to a large extent.

Interdepartmental oversight conducted through the random selection of both inspectors and inspection targets and the prompt release of results has continued, with 74 matters in 35 fields being inspected. Credit rating-based regulation has been further promoted as limits have been imposed on more than 500,000 defaulters, including the legal representative and senior executives of enterprises.

By the end of this July, China’s registered market entities have reached 132 million and registered enterprises 41.109 million, an increase of 6.7% and 6.5% respectively than that of late last year. On average, 64,000 market entities were created per day from January to July and among them, 21,000 are enterprises with a net growth of 11,000.

“The business system reform promotes entrepreneurship and reenergizes the market,” said Tang, adding that some pressing issues such as “letting firms in but not letting them do business” remain to be addressed and measures have to be taken to ensure a lower threshold to start businesses, strict regulation and joint governance.

“We are set to deepen reforms in the business sector in five dimensions,” said Tang.

We will expand the reform separating permits from the business license from 18 pilot free trade zones to the entire nation and cover the matters of both central and local governments. We will draw a unified list of pilot measures for free trade zones and apply them nationwide. We will move boldly forward and develop new measures for building these zones.

We will ensure online services are in place to start a business. The approach of beginning a business through a single website must be adopted across China and relevant services must be upgraded. The time needed to start a business will be reduced from five working days to four or less where possible.

We will make a breakthrough of the reform of the business registration system. To this end, greater effort will be made to put domiciles and premises on record, and local governments will be supported to separate the registration of domiciles from that of premises. We are set to create a smarter self-service registration system of enterprise names and increase protection for the proper name of renowned enterprises.

We will streamline regulatory requirements for enterprises to produce, operate and gain approval. We will make dynamic adjustments to the Catalogue of Products Subject to China Compulsory Certification, simplify the certification process of domestic products and support the domestic sale of export products. The online approval system of certifying testing institutions will be introduced nationwide.

We will strengthen supervision during and after production. To this end, greater energy will be devoted to publicizing enterprise information, improving the mechanism for punitive action against bad faith and enhancing intelligent supervision. On top of improving the system of recalling defective products, we will standardize the supervisory behavior of the platform economy, make the economy orderly and competitive and punish illegal acts in relation to e-commerce in a bid to create a market in a fair and orderly manner.

“We will devote greater energy in implementing measures in these five aspects, help ensure stability on the six fronts and security in the six areas and do what we ought to do as the market regulator,” said Tang.