Shanghai's Jing'an district has released a comprehensive action plan to further enhance its business environment — aiming to create a world-class business environment that focuses on improving the experience of its resident companies.

The plan, which was unveiled on Feb 24, outlines a series of measures focused on enhancing government services, streamlining regulatory inspections, encouraging businesses to expand overseas, optimizing industrial environments and energizing its community-level business vitality.

Key highlights of the action plan include:

Enhancing government services

• Streamline administrative processes to facilitate one-stop services for businesses and individuals, including talent recruitment, policy support and project approvals.
• Expand application of administrative approvals system, based on enterprises' signed commitment of compliance of related regulations notified by the authority, to reduce required documents and simplify procedures.
• Implement "artificial intelligence + government services" initiatives to create a "smart service" brand and promote automated approvals and applications processes.
• Integrate on-site and online services to provide comprehensive support — including legal, financial, talent, tech innovation and international trade services.
• Facilitate cross-regional service access and enhance hotline services for more efficient communications and problems resolution.
• Optimize the "1 + 8 + 18 + X" investment promotions service system to provide comprehensive support for businesses.

Optimizing policy integration

• Ensure coherence and scientific nature of economic and non-economic policies by conducting assessments.
• Enhance policy clarity and accessibility for businesses through concise and user-friendly interpretation.
• Facilitate policy implementation efficiency by streamlining applications procedures and promoting "no application required" initiatives.
• Establish a platform for industrial policy services, enabling efficient access to policies.

Setting benchmark for foreign-related services

• Create innovative foreign-related service scenarios, promoting the development of designated service areas and facilitating tax refunds for overseas travelers.
• Conduct investment promotion activities to attract global investment and accelerate the implementation of major foreign-funded projects.
• Enhance comprehensive support for foreign nationals, addressing challenges in business, work and daily life.

Simplifying regulatory inspections

• Expand cross-departmental comprehensive supervision in key sectors such as food, pharmaceuticals, hazardous chemicals, gas, special equipment and construction engineering quality.
• Utilize credit-based tiered supervision to implement differentiated inspection frequencies and sampling rates.
• Encourage inclusive and prudent supervision by implementing "no penalty" measures for minor violations in certain areas.
• Provide guidance for businesses to operate in compliance with regulations and establish a legal compliance manual.
• Implement a "check code" system for administrative inspections to reduce redundancy and improve efficiency.
• Expand use of non-site inspection methods to reduce frequency of physical inspections.

Protecting business interests

• Establish "blacklist" system to curb malicious reporting and extortion attempts.
• Create clear information environment by combating false and misleading information about businesses.
• Strengthen intellectual property protection and utilization with a focus on fostering innovation and promoting patent-intensive industries.
• Standardize handling of business-related cases to ensure fairness and transparency.
• Enhance legal protection for businesses through initiatives such as the Economic Crime Legal Risk Control Alliance.

Facilitating overseas expansion of businesses

• Build one-stop platform to provide comprehensive services for businesses seeking to enter international markets.
• Optimize the international cooperation network by strengthening ties with consulates, business associations and international organizations.
• Encourage businesses to implement internationalization strategies, establish international brand recognition and enhance their global operational capabilities.

Optimizing industrial business environment

• Enhance financial support through measures such as promoting intellectual property pledge financing and expanding the coverage of government-backed interest subsidies.
• Deepen talent services through initiatives such as the "Jingying" and "Shangjing" talent programs and the construction of a one-stop talent service center.
• Strengthen carrier support by building world-class business parks and promoting high-quality incubators for key sectors like the ultra-high-definition (UHD) audiovisual industry.
• Provide rental housing support to cater to the needs of new residents and young professionals.
• Facilitate cross-border data flows by developing guidelines for specific sectors.
• Implement customized "one industry, one plan" approaches to cater to the unique needs of different industries.

Enhancing community-level business vitality

• Empower local governments to promote innovative services and encourage growth of new business models.
• Optimize the task allocation mechanism to improve the efficiency of resolving business issues.
• Create unique brand identities for subdistricts, towns and functional zones to highlight their distinctive features and attract investment.

Benchmarking and improving business environment evaluation

• Benchmark best practices in areas such as commercial mediation, bankruptcy assistance, employment protection, labor law enforcement, advertising park development, engineering approvals and regulatory innovation.
• Gather feedback from businesses through various channels, including regular communications, complaints resolution mechanisms and third-party evaluations.
• Publish evaluation results to promote transparency and accountability.
• Highlight success stories and promote the "Jing'an story" of a favorable business environment through various media platforms.
• Upgrade professional capabilities of economic officials to enhance their ability to provide comprehensive support to businesses.
• Target key areas for improvement based on World Bank indicators such as market entry, business location, utility connections, labor, financial services, international trade, taxation, disputes resolution, market competition and business insolvency.

Source: Development and reform commission of Jing'an district

Note: The English version of the action plan is for reference only; the official Chinese document shall prevail.