Shanghai enhances efforts for business-friendly environment

Shanghai's continued efforts to create an amiable business environment will boost economic vibrancy and elevate market confidence, translating into growth momentum necessary to confront the headwinds in the global economy, said experts and corporate executives.

Their comments followed the circular released by the municipal government on Thursday, outlining 10 major missions that Shanghai should conduct to better its business environment by deepening the alignment with the World Bank criteria.

Apart from carrying out more reforms by referring to the bank's standards and internationally advanced experiences, favorable government policies should be more easily accessible for companies, said the circular.

The city will launch an online platform via which companies can search for the applicable policies and obtain approvals. A "policy calculator" will also be introduced to explicitly explain the application conditions and scope for certain policies.

Financing costs for small and medium-sized enterprises should be lowered, while innovative financing services should be provided to these companies, said the circular. Therefore, Shanghai will promote a speed loan action among industrial parks, which were first attempted in the industrial parks in Shanghai's Hongkou district.

Companies should also be facilitated regarding bankruptcy, as this is one of the gauges in the World Bank reports. Higher efficiency in this aspect will help the market evolve at a faster pace, assist companies with their restructuring and optimize the resource allocation in the market, according to the government circular.

Among the 59 gauges that the World Bank has used to measure the business environment, Shanghai has reached the best level for 22 gauges, according to the bank's recently released Enterprise Surveys Country Profile China 2025 report.

As explained by Chen Yanfeng, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Development & Reform Commission, the World Bank revised the methodology handbook for its Business Ready report in 2023, with emphasis on the effectiveness of supervision regulations and public services as well as the mood of enterprises. Shanghai's new action plan to better its business environment released at the beginning of the year, now in the eighth edition, bears the same focus areas as the World Bank standards.

"In other words, companies have the final say when it comes to the evaluation of business environment," said Chen.

Creating a more business-friendly environment is among key objectives of the municipal government as underscored by the 10 major missions, which include down-to-earth and breakthrough measures. Problems frequently encountered by companies will be better addressed, he said.

That is consistent with Shanghai's efforts to stabilize employment, companies' operations and market expectations. In this way, Shanghai can seek high-quality development to confront the uncertainties in the changing external environment, said Chen.

The Shanghai government has used big data to locate the right companies eligible for certain favorable policies.

According to Yan Wenzhou, chief product officer of Shanghai-based Bioyond Robotics, long-term investment in research and development is crucial to the company as it specializes in intelligent automation solutions for life science industry. Bioyond has been granted subsidies directly via the mechanism that meant the company did not have to fill in any forms or go through any applications.

"On the one hand, we can use the time and energy for R&D, which might have been consumed for complicated applications for government support. On the other, we have indeed benefited from the government incentives, using the subsidies for technology innovation and transforming the research results into products at a faster pace," Yan said.

As explained by Chen of Shanghai Municipal Development & Reform Commission, another major change in the World Bank's evaluation system is the diverted focus from domestic market to international market. Frontier reform ideas from various industries have been integrated into the bank's new methods.

"Serving as China's window of opening-up, Shanghai has long featured the outbound economy. Aligning with the World Bank standards can help Shanghai attract more high-end resources from home and abroad while enhancing its international competitiveness," said Chen.

shijing@chinadaily.com.cn

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