1. What the World Bank's Business Ready (B-READY) mainly assesses:

• Regulatory Framework Quality: Legislative quality in areas of anti-monopoly measures, IP protection, innovation promotion, government procurement, and tendering and bidding.
• Service Quality: Promoting the adequacy, transparency, and digitalization of services provided by promoting market competition institutions.
• Convenience: Efficiency in enforcing competition rules, supporting innovation and IPR protection, government procurement, and tendering and bidding.

2. Key points, cases, and relevant legal policies (Coming soon)

3. What efforts have been made in Shanghai:

• Continued efforts are underway to investigate and address monopolistic agreements and abuses of market dominance, and rectify instances of administrative abuse that exclude or restrict competition, thereby enhancing market openness.
• Actively conducted anti-monopoly examinations of concentrations of undertakings, ranking first among pilot provinces and cities in the number of examinations throughout the year.
• Continuous efforts in promoting anti-monopoly compliance and enhancing public awareness of competition compliance.
• Released multiple documents on intellectual property, covering dispute mediation, overseas dispute response mechanisms, public services, and geographical indication management. Revised the rules for the external transfer of intellectual property and opinions on intellectual property protection in e-commerce.
• Revised the Shanghai Intellectual Property Special Fund Management Measures to strengthen policy protection for the development of intellectual property service institutions.
• Continues to promote the comprehensive government service system for intellectual property. Efforts are being made to integrate the 16 district service windows, the Shanghai business acceptance window for the China National Intellectual Property Administration, and Shanghai's "One-stop Intellectual Property Service" and district special service windows, so as to form a united intellectual property public service system.
• In terms of the intellectual property protection service system, established a network of a rights protection assistance sub-center and 29 rights protection assistance workstations.
• In terms of the intellectual property application service system, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration has established 20 high-value patent cultivation centers within institutions achieving remarkable outcomes in IP protection and management. Additionally, 28 intellectual property operation centers have been established in universities, health institutions, and key industries. Furthermore, 15 intellectual property financial innovation centers have been set up.
• In terms of the intellectual property information publicization and utilization, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration has formed a comprehensive network, comprising the Shanghai Intellectual Property Information Service Platform, eight technology and innovation support centers, seven national intellectual property information service centers in universities, nine national intellectual property information public service outlets, and 11 municipal-level intellectual property information public service outlets.
• Treating all types of businesses equally, efforts are ongoing to remove barriers and regulations in Shanghai's government procurement activities that hinder fair competition. This ensures impartial treatment for enterprises of various ownership types, including foreign-funded, private, and non-local enterprises.
• Government procurement transparency has been significantly enhanced with strict compliance to disclosure regulations. This involves increased openness in bidding and transaction, disclosing evaluation prices or scores of winning bidders along with evaluation committee recommendations. Government procurement contracts and amendments are promptly disclosed on the "Shanghai Municipal Government Procurement Center" website (https://cgzx.jgj.sh.gov.cn/) within two working days of modification. These notices contain essential details such as the original contract information, amended clause number, supplementary contract text, and the date of modification.
• Government procurement efficiency has been boosted. To strictly enforce contract signing and fund payment regulations, contracts should be signed within 30 days from the date of deliverance of the bid acceptance and bid-winning notification, or within seven days after resolution of force majeure delays. Streamlining internal processes for quicker contract signing is encouraged. Upon fulfilling contract conditions, funds should be disbursed to the designated supplier account within 10 working days after receiving the invoice. Expedited fund disbursement within one working day upon invoice receipt is encouraged. For contracts with prepayment arrangements, it is encouraged to increase the prepayment ratio to over 30 percent.
• Full digitalization of government procurement processes has been achieved. The service level of the city's Government Procurement Cloud Platform, including online disclosure of procurement intentions, procurement notice publication, document provision, bidding document submission, bid bonds submission, contract signing, invoice submission, and fund payments are being continuously enhanced. It also simplified supplier registration, introduced gender classification for legal representatives of suppliers and electronic business license applications.
• Reducing supplier transaction costs by providing free electronic procurement documents and streamlining qualification reviews, replacing the need for written documentation of financial status, tax payments, and social security contributions with a commitment-based system.
• Measures promoting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) involves clear qualification standards for government procurement, reduced entry barriers, and increased procurement contract sharing through flexible strategies like project reservations, reasonable reservation of procurement packages, large enterprises forming consortia with SMEs, and subcontracting to SMEs. Additional measures include higher advance payments, credit guarantees, contract financing support, and free electronic procurement guidance for enhanced SMEs participation.
• Government procurement financing is being facilitated by opening up government procurement data to relevant financial institutions through the "Shanghai Public Data Open Platform" (https://data.sh.gov.cn/). This enables tailored financing services for government procurement suppliers, simplifies processes, reduces costs, and optimizes inclusive financial services. The "Government Procurement Loan" section on the "Shanghai Government Procurement Cloud Platform" (https://home.zfcg.sh.gov.cn/) serves as a gateway for financial institutions to promote exclusive financing services and provides suppliers with convenient access to information and online transactions.

4. What Shanghai has achieved:

• Shanghai-Suzhou cluster secured the fifth position in the Science and Technology (S&T) Cluster ranking of World Intellectual Property Organization's Global Innovation Index 2023. S&T clusters are areas in the world where the highest density of inventors and scientific authors are located.
• The Shanghai Municipal People's Government and the WIPO signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to enhance exchanges and cooperation in the field of intellectual property on December 9, 2023. The two sides will deepen cooperation in Shanghai under the framework of the MOU.
• Shanghai successfully hosted the 20th Shanghai International Intellectual Property Forum on December 10, 2023.
• In accordance with the State Council's Overall Plan for Comprehensively Connecting with International High-standard Economic and Trade Rules and Promoting High-level Institutional Opening up of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Lingang Special Area are piloting efforts to align government procurement regulations with international high-standard economic and trade rules, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA).