World Bank: CQ's Business Environment Continues to Improve
“CHONGQING'S BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT CONTINUES TO IMPROVE, INDICATORS FOR REGISTERING PROPERTY, ENFORCING CONTRACTS AND HANDLING BANKRUPTCY HAVE REACHED THE LEVEL OF DEVELOPED ECONOMIES”
On January 19, the World Bank Chongqing Business Environment Advisory and Assessment Project video conference was held. In the previous period, the World Bank conducted a consultancy assessment of five indicators in Chongqing, including starting a business, obtaining a construction permit, registering property, enforcing contracts and handling bankruptcy. The results of the consultation and assessment show that the relevant indicators of the city have exceeded the world average, especially the indicators of registering property, enforcing contracts and handling bankruptcy have reached the level of developed economies.Eleven overall optimization program, more than 110 supporting policies introduced
A spokesperson for the Municipal Development and Reform Commission introduced that the city set up a leading group for optimizing the business environment headed by the main leader of the municipal government and a special working group for 11 indicators headed by the municipal leader in charge, forming a working mechanism for optimizing and improving the business environment with the main leader of the municipal government taking charge personally, the municipal leader in charge taking charge specifically and the municipal departments taking charge separately. The city's 45 units and 39 districts and counties are working closely together, and the city has formed a strong synergy to optimize the business environment.
At the same time, the city strengthened study and exchange. Leaders from the Ministry of Finance and other relevant national ministries and commissions, as well as experts from home and abroad, were invited to Chongqing for training and exchanges, and relevant personnel were organised to go to Beijing and Shanghai for research and study, to learn advanced ideas and practices in a comprehensive manner, and to organise third-party mock assessments and put forward lists of problems and suggestions for optimisation. The Municipal People's Congress, the Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection have made the business environment a key matter for political participation and supervision and inspection, and collected opinions and suggestions from more than 300 enterprises and intermediaries through research talks and other means.
With good policies, it is also necessary to let market players know. The city has launched the official website of "Doing Business in Chongqing" and the WeChat public account, relying on the portal and app of the municipal government to open a special window on "optimising the business environment", adopting a map to read and understand, micro videos and other easy-to-understand ways to vividly explain the policies on optimising the business environment. It has also organized the selection of the top ten cases of optimizing the business environment and received nearly 100 million likes from the public, creating a good atmosphere for the whole society to know, support and participate in optimizing the business environment.
Time required to start a business saving of 60% on average
A spokesperson for the Municipal Development and Reform Commission introduced, in terms of simplifying the approval process, the city benchmarked with international advanced, the current stock transfer registration is reduced to 1 link, can receive a certificate on the spot, the processing speed in the forefront of the country. Engineering construction project approval declaration materials and processing time are streamlined by more than 50%, small low-risk construction projects full process links reduced to 8, the time reduced to 34 days, the convenience of the forefront in the country. The online processing rate for starting a business reached 98.1%, and the standing business start-up time was reduced to within one day. The 2019 assessment report of the Development Research Center of the State Council and the 2020 assessment report of the World Bank showed that the three indicators involved in both assessments, such as starting a business, handling construction permits and registering property, reduced the office time by an average of 60% and 52% of the office steps.
At the same time, the city has been bold and innovative. The first judicial assessment index system for a rule of law business environment was created, the first bankruptcy court in the western region was established, the professionalization of bankruptcy trials was strengthened, and bankruptcy cases were concluded in an average of 89 days in a simplified manner, shortening the trial period by more than 20% year-on-year. The "Shanghai-Chongqing Direct Express Line" was launched, and the overall time for water transportation between Chongqing and Shanghai ports was reduced by 40% on average, stabilizing the production and logistics expectations of foreign trade enterprises. More government purchase services were used in the area of regulating and reducing business-related costs to eliminate hidden costs. The entire process of starting a business in Chongqing is free of charge, and social investment in small, low-risk construction projects only requires companies to pay for the cost of hiring a supervisory agency, making the low cost level among the highest in the world.
In terms of services, Chongqing has made use of smart government to improve the effectiveness of its services. For example, the city has built a new ecosystem of smart courts, with an average of 1.2 court sessions for summary proceedings and 1.3 sessions for ordinary proceedings in commercial cases. With the implementation of the "one-form integration" of VAT declaration by the Electronic Taxation Bureau, the time required for enterprises to prepare, file and pay taxes has been reduced to within 100 hours on average per year. In addition, it also accelerated the creation of the new "Yu Express Office" administrative service model, allowing data to run more and the public to run less, with a cumulative total of 20.66 million registered users and the number of transactions exceeding 140 million, and the ratio of "the most run once" for municipal administrative licensing matters exceeding 99% and the number of matters available online exceeding 95%. The proportion of administrative licensing matters at the municipal level that can be handled online exceeds 99% and 95%.
More application scenarios for online government services
So how will Chongqing do in the future? A spokesperson for the Municipal Development and Reform Commission said, the next step, Chongqing will benchmark advanced increase reform efforts, under the guidance of the Ministry of Finance, a comprehensive benchmarking of the World Bank's evaluation system for the business environment, drawing on the experience and practices of advanced regions in China to enhance the effectiveness of policy implementation. The city will create a pilot city for business environment innovation, actively explore, take the lead and make a breakthrough, and form a number of replicable and replicable pilot experiences.
At the same time, the city will be more pragmatic and efficient to speed up the implementation of policies, accelerate the setting of comprehensive windows in government service halls, promote the standardization of business processes for each indicator, and enhance the professionalism and standardization of window service personnel. In the future, it will strengthen the construction of online government service platforms, realise more application scenarios electronically, promote data sharing and mutual recognition among government departments, and enhance the convenience of doing business online.
In addition, we will continue to promote the city's reform initiatives to optimise the business environment. In addition to expanding the influence of the official website and WeChat public account of "Doing Business in Chongqing", the city will adopt telephone call-back and door-to-door services to market players and intermediaries to push policy information in a timely and accurate manner, so as to promote the enjoyment of beneficial policies for enterprises.
Source: Chongqing Daily