Red tape reduced to grant firms easier market access

China's top market regulator is to cancel or relax 106 items that need government approval when businesses apply for operating permits, as part of reforms to reduce red tape and create a better environment for enterprises.The changes will take effect on Nov 10, Ma Zhengqi, deputy head of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said at a policy briefing hosted by the State Council Information Office on Friday.Among the 106 items, two will be canceled outright, meaning some market entities will be able to start operation as soon as they receive business licenses, he said. Previously, enterprises needed various permits depending on their industry before being allowed to trade.One item will be also reclassified as "file submission", meaning enterprises can operate as long as they have handed over the necessary paperwork to regulators, Ma said.For another 18 items, market entities will receive immediate on-site approval after they make written promises and submit the necessary materials, while the other 84 items will be streamlined to increase efficiency, he said.The briefing followed the release of a guideline about the reform approved at an executive meeting of the State Council on Sept 12. The meeting decided to roll out nationwide a pilot program in the Shanghai free trade zone that separated business licenses from operating permits.Ma said China has adopted a series of reforms to improve its business environment and reduce institutional costs for enterprises. As of last month, China had 105 million market entities, including more than 32 million enterprises, according to the administration's data.The country has risen 65 places in the global ranking for ease of market access for new enterprises, he said. Although, he added, enterprises can still face a long process before starting operations in China.A number of measures will help promote the reform, Ma said, such as random inspections, which is when the enterprise and inspection officials are randomly selected by computer. This method will ease the burden on enterprises but keep them alert, he said.Meanwhile, the National Enterprise Credit Publicity System now covers more than 30 million enterprises nationwide, showing their records in areas such as business registration and government penalties. Ma said no one would want to see their poor records exposed in the system.Zhao Zhenhua, director of government legislation coordination for the Ministry of Justice, said some legislative clauses would be amended concerning the reform before November.Source: China Daily

China intl industry fair opens in Shanghai

The 20th China International Industry Fair opened Wednesday in Shanghai, with over 2,600 companies participating in the five-day event.With the theme of "innovation, intelligence and green", this year's fair is expected to attract over 170,000 visitors. Its 280,000 square meters of exhibition space will house 13,000 booths, 30 percent of which are from foreign companies.Eight professional exhibition sectors have been set up to cover major industrial areas including numerically-controlled machine tools and metal processing, industrial automation, robots, new energy and electrical power, industrial Internet, energy-saving and environmental protection technology and equipment, intelligent network vehicles and technical innovation.The organizers said the fair has become an important platform for companies from China and other countries to carry out economic and technological activities and enhance exchanges.

The Summer Davos Forum has held in Tianjin

The Summer Davos Forum has become a global event in science, technology and innovation. Every year, there are many “leaders” participants, and this year is the same.Nearly 200 politicians from 42 countries and regions gathered in Tianjin to focus on the Summer Davos Forum. Four heads of State or Government, 38 Deputy Heads of State, Deputy Prime Ministers, Deputy Prime Ministers or Ministers attend. There are more than 1,500 business leaders including representatives and CEOs of many companies, as well as representatives from the literary, academic, and media sectors.During the annual Summer Davos Forum, the organizing committee will set up sub-themes in several sub-meeting venues, and invite guests to discuss China's economic issues from different sides, and this year is the same. The related topics include “Building the Innovation on 'Belt and Road' ”, “China Green Leadership”, “China Financial Opening”, “Consumption Trends and China Economy”, “China's 40 Years of Opening to the Outside World” and “China's Foreign Investment”. "Shaping the future of artificial intelligence in China" and so on. Edwin, chief representative of the Greater China Region of the World Economic Forum, said: "China's 40 years of unremitting reform and opening up have created many opportunities for the people and the world. This is why we are here to talk, discuss and seek a win-win solution. ”The Theme of the Forum is “Building an Innovative Society in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. The first issue is to explore the influences for economic, social, and geopolitical landscape of the Fourth Industrial Revolution driven by emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and Genetic Editing."China is showing the world a powerful ability to lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The secret of success in this new era is 'Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation.'" World Economic Forum founder and executive chairman Schwab said, "This an important economic innovation concept has shaped our future together."

The business investment environment in China

"From the data of the first half of the year, the enthusiasm of investors from all over the world to invest in China has not diminished, especially in the High-tech Manufacturing and Service Industries, the enthusiasm of foreign investment is very high. This is due to the huge potential of the Chinese market, especially in the context of economic structural transformation and upgrading, foreign investors are not to miss such development opportunities; on the other hand, thanks to China's continuous opening measures, the restrictions on related fields are decreasing, providing the conditions for foreign capital to enter the Chinese market." Huo Jianguo, Vice President of the China World Trade Organization Research Association, said in an interview with this reporter.Starting from July 28 this year, the national version of the 2018 "negative list" began to be implemented; from July 30, the 2018 "negative list" of the Free Trade Zone began to be implemented. Huo Jianguo said that the release and implementation of these two negative lists is another major measure for China to expand its opening up and relax market access. The national version of the negative list has introduced open measures in 22 areas, and the restrictions have been reduced by nearly a quarter."There are most opening areas in which the negative list, is the long-term concern for foreign investors. For example, in the Manufacturing Sector, the Automotive Industry is opened in different stages; in the Service Sector, the foreign stocks restrictions in the financial sector are eliminated. We believe that the implementation of the "New Vision Negative List" will further stimulate the enthusiasm of investors from all over the world to invest in China,” Gao said.While market access has been greatly relaxed, more and more initiatives to optimize the business environment have accelerated roots across the country. At the end of June this year, Beijing completed the implementation of the plan for further optimizing the business environment, implementing the principle of equal treatment for all types of ownership enterprises, and abolishing all the regulations that impede fair competition. Shanghai has introduced “100 open expansions”, which improve the approval efficiency for neterprises;   Zhejiang Province vigorously promotes the digital transformation of the government, and now more than 80% of the matters can be handled online; Xiamen City has simplified the procedures and upgraded through the reform of the approval system for engineering construction projects. The speed has attracted a large number of enterprises to settle in Xiamen..."We will continue to improve the business environment, protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign-funded enterprises in China, attract more outstanding foreign companies to China, and achieve common development in the opportunities of China's development, so that China will continue to be the first choice for foreign investment." Gao said.

Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs highlights China-Africa economic and trade cooperation

The 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit was held on September 3-4, and the high-level dialogue between Chinese and African leaders and business representatives as well as the 6th Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs will be jointly hosted by the Chinese Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and China’s Ministry of Commerce during this period.Against the backdrop of the China-Africa relationship entering into a new era, the conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs is set to be a grand international gathering highlighting China-Africa solidarity and cooperation, and an opportunity for Chinese-African business circles to open new approaches to cooperation.Jiang Zengwei, the chairman of CCPIT, made the above remarks at the press conference held Friday morning. Centering on the theme of "China and Africa: Toward an Even Stronger Community with a Shared Future through Win-Win Cooperation," three topics were assigned for discussion, including advancing industrial cooperation for win-win development, deepening trade cooperation for common development, and enhancing infrastructure cooperation for sustainable development.This conference has been highly valued by African countries, with all parties actively participating, and the number of applicants far exceeding expectations. After final confirmation, there were 2,088 delegates from 53 countries and China, including 1,019 representatives from China and 1,069 representatives from Africa. It is reported that leaders from more than 30 African countries will attend the opening ceremony of the Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs.The participating enterprises, business associations and research institutions cover all African member states from FOCAC.The participating enterprises cover various industries, including not only the leading enterprises of traditional industries such as energy, finance, food, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, infrastructure, etc., but also outstanding representatives of new economies such as the Internet, e-commerce, and sharing economy.Representatives of large enterprises in China and Africa, including 67 of the world’s top 500 companies and 111 of Chinas top 500 companies, will attend the opening ceremony. Meanwhile, a certain number of representatives from small and medium-sized enterprises will also participate in the conference.Strengthening economic cooperation for common development is an important aspect of China-Africa cooperation. Chinese and African economies are complementary with huge potential for cooperation.The Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs was initiated in 2003, which is an important supporting event of FOCAC. It is held every three years, and this year will mark its sixth occurrence. The conference has contributed a lot to deepen China-Africa economic cooperation to build a stronger community for the shared future of mankind and promote common development and prosperity for China, Africa and the world.Source:people.cn

China has become the second largest country for foreign capital inflow

On August 30th, the Statistics Bureau issued a report saying that China has continuously improved its openness, promoted investment facilitation, improved the investment environment, and continuously improved the quality and efficiency of foreign capital utilization. In 2017, China actually used foreign capital of US$136.3 billion, making it the second largest foreign capital inflow country in the world.According to the report, since the reform and opening up, the quality and efficiency of China's use of foreign capital has increased significantly, and the business environment has continued to improve. Mainly presents the following three characteristics:First, the scale of utilizing foreign capital is constantly expanding. In the early days of reform and opening up, China’s use of foreign capital was small, and the main method was external borrowing. In 1983, China actually utilized foreign capital of 2.26 billion US dollars. Since the reform and opening up, China has used more than 2 trillion US dollars of foreign direct investment. In 2017, China’s actual use of foreign capital was US$136.3 billion, 60 times that of 1983, with an average annual growth rate of 12.8%. As of the end of 2017, there were nearly 540,000 foreign-funded enterprises registered. In 2017, China was the second largest foreign capital inflow country in the world. Since 1993, the scale of utilizing foreign capital has ranked first among developing countries.Foreign-funded enterprises have played an important role in expanding imports and exports and increasing fiscal revenue. In 2017, the import and export volume of foreign-invested enterprises was 12.4 trillion yuan, accounting for 44.8% of the total import and export of China's goods, and the tax revenue was 2.9 trillion yuan, accounting for 18.7% of the national tax revenue.Second, the use of foreign capital structure is improving day by day, and the industrial structure is continuously optimized. Since the reform and opening up, China's use of foreign capital has experienced a process of increasing the scale of the Secondary Industry, increasing its proportion, increasing the scale of the Secondary and Tertiary Industries, and increasing the proportion of the Tertiary Industry. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the quality of foreign capital utilization has been further improved, and foreign capital has flowed more to high-tech industries. In 2017, the proportion of foreign capital utilized by high-tech industries accounted for 27.4%, an increase of 13.6 percentage points from 2012 and an average annual growth rate of 18.4%.The regional layout is more reasonable. In 2017, the actual use of foreign capital in the central region was US$8.3 billion, an increase of 17.1% year-on-year; the newly established foreign-funded enterprises in the western region increased by 43.2% year-on-year.Third, the foreign investment environment continued to improve and the foreign investment management system was gradually optimized. As the basis for guiding the management of foreign investment projects, the "Guidance Catalogue for Foreign Investment Industries" has been revised seven times since it was first promulgated in 1995. The foreign investment quota has been greatly relaxed, and restrictive measures have been reduced to 63. The level of openness in service industry, manufacturing industry, mining industry and other fields has increased significantly. In 2018, China further revised the negative list of foreign investment and comprehensively implemented the pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system.