Shanghai released version 8.0 of an action plan on Wednesday to optimize the city's business environment.
A regular move since 2018, the new version of the action plan boasts 58 new reform initiatives which aim to make it easier for enterprises to do business in Shanghai.
The new plan covers five main areas: continuing to align with World Bank standards; optimizing services to assist enterprises; optimizing supervision and inspection involving enterprises; promoting the construction of business environment in towns and parks; strengthening the supervision and monitoring of communication channels between the government and enterprises as well as media observers.
Lu Aiguo, director of the business environment division at the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, said: "Compared with last year's 150 initiatives, this year's 58 are fewer, but strive to streamline the measures and improve efficiency."
It is worth noting that six of the 58 tasks in the new plan are related to the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, including regulating profit-making whistleblowers, strengthening intellectual property rights protection and clearing up delinquent business accounts.
Emphasizing the rule of law by adding more related measures is an improvement compared with the previous year.
In the opinion of Yang Hongwei, chairman and chief researcher of the Shanghai Zhongchuang Industrial Innovation Research Institute, the rule of law is at the heart of the construction of a market-oriented, law-guided and internationalized business environment.
He alluded to some malicious reports from "profitmaking whistleblowers."
"Once the relevant departments carry out real investigations based on these reports, it tends to affect the normal operation of the business as well as its social reputation," Yang noted.
He hoped that through the measures like establishing a blacklisting system to prevent the malicious abuse of reports in the 8.0 action plan, such incidents could be stopped.
The new plan mirrors enterprises' real needs, as a large number of business research was carried out during the drafting stage which focused on what enterprises wished for, and the 58 initiatives were carefully chosen from a list of 189 requirements posted by various enterprises.
Lu hopes that the plan will be able to solve the long-lasting problems faced by most enterprises.
"Sometimes, it's not about how innovative we are and how great it sounds in terms of releasing new measures, it's more important to look at the results that can be achieved from the perspective of enterprises," he pointed out.
This is the 8th consecutive year that Shanghai has released an action plan to optimize the business environment, having achieved good results over the past seven years.
Shanghai set up three one-stop comprehensive service centers for expatriates at Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao Airport last year.
For example, to facilitate expatriates to come to Shanghai for business, work and travel, Shanghai last year set up three one-stop comprehensive service centers at Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao Airport. These received more than 180,000 business inquiries and distributed nearly 200,000 copies of Shanghai service guides in six languages, including English, French and German.
In terms of promoting the orderly and free flow of data, the city government opened a dedicated phone line for data cross-border business inquiries, which has so far responded to over 9,000 inquiries, and formulated a negative list for cross-border data flow in the China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone and the Lingang Special Area.
As of January 2025, 91 projects in Shanghai had passed the data exit security assessment, and 448 had completed the contract filing of personal information exit standards, ranking first in the country for the number of assessments passed and the number of filings.
Since 2018, the city has implemented a total of 1,101 tasks and initiatives.
In the World Bank's global Doing Business ranking, which takes Shanghai and Beijing as samples, China has risen from 78th in 2018 to 31st in 2020 (the latest year of evaluation).
By the end of 2024, Shanghai had 2.9 million real businesses, equivalent to one entrepreneur for every 8.5 people in the city, the highest density in the country, according to official statistics.
Last May, a program was also launched by the city government, inviting business reporters to serve as observers and supervisors of Shanghai's business environment.
Improving the business environment is one of the most important factors in stimulating economic vitality, according to Wang Zhongqi, an associate professor at the department of Public Administration of the party school of the Shanghai Committee of the Communist Party of China.
"The relationship between business environment and economic vitality is like putting water in a pond to raise fish; a good business environment is an ecosystem suitable for business-making. Only if the water in the pond is good can the fish be good," he insisted.
Chen Yanfeng, deputy director of the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, said: "We hope that through everyone's efforts, those who work and live in this city will be trusted and respected, making more companies to feel proud of Shanghai and being in Shanghai."
For more information, visit Shanghai government's official website.
Source: Shanghai Daily