Since Shanghai launched the Action Plan 7.0 on Business Environment Optimization in February 2024, a total of 150 reform measures have been completed, achieving an enterprise satisfaction rate of 96 percent. This marks a significant step in Shanghai's ongoing efforts to foster a world-class business environment. Below are the five key actions taken by the city.

I. Action of improving benchmarking reform

Market entry

Based on "Shanghai Online Business Registration" (https://yct.sh.gov.cn/portal_yct/), 700,000 cases for the establishment, change, and cancellation of domestic and foreign-funded enterprises have been handled online.

Business entities have used the electronic business license in government affairs and business scenarios for 70 million times, ranking first in China.

Shanghai has initiatively introduced the mechanism that once the enterprise registration information has changed, changes to seal engraving and filing, tax-related matters, social insurance registration, and registration of housing fund contributions paid by corporates will be linked automatically and simultaneously. A total of 220,000 cases of enterprise information changes have been handled through this mechanism.

Business location

Shanghai has implemented the "one-stop service" to respond to public utility business applications and installations, reducing more than 10 steps and more than 20 application documents.

Shanghai has introduced "whole-process online handling" for 17 categories of high-frequency services, such as transfer registration between individuals, changes in rights holder names, spouse changes, pre-registration, and registration for sealing up and unsealing.

Shanghai has issued China's first special environmental protection support policy for the integrated circuit industry.

Utility services

A total of 2,602 copies of the "Value-added Telecom Service Operating License" have been delivered via mail.

Shanghai has released China's first key performance indicator system for the environmental sustainability of power supply (trial version).

Labor

The construction of the National Public Employment Service Regional Center (Shanghai) has been promoted, with 355 community-based employment service stations established.

Seventeen labor dispute arbitration institutions have been established citywide to ensure full coverage of rapid arbitration tribunals. A total of 67 accredited arbitration tribunals, circuit appeal tribunals, and mobile arbitration tribunals have been set up.

Financial services

With the "Seamless Loan Renewal" raising its limit and expanding its coverage, as of the end of Q3 2024, 49 Chinese-funded banks within the jurisdiction had cumulatively placed seamless loans of 835.369 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.51 percent.

The long-term working mechanism for "relief financing" for small and micro enterprises has been improved. As of the end of Q3 2024, 49 Chinese-funded banks within the jurisdiction had cumulatively provided relief financing amounting to 390.106 billion yuan, providing crucial support to over 100,000 enterprises.

The support for government financing guarantees has been enhanced, with the municipal guarantee fund increased its capital to 18.411 billion yuan, and the policy financing guarantee loan reached 121.256 billion yuan, up 27.86 percent year on year.

Financial institutions and enterprises in Shanghai have issued 35 green bonds in the interbank market, with a total issuance scale of 27.188 billion yuan.

The municipal financing credit platform has been consolidated and optimized, facilitating the issuance of loans totaling 309 billion yuan.

International trade

Shanghai has issued China's first provincial document to support the high-quality development of Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) enterprises and established six AEO certification guidance centers and enterprise service stations. There are 558 AEO enterprises in the Shanghai Customs District.

The pilot two-person inspection model at Shanghai Pudong International Airport has been optimized, reducing the average inspection time by 20 percent compared with the air transportation site in the same period of the previous year.

Yangshan Customs has carried out a pilot program for remote inspection and supervision of hazardous chemical label rectification, reducing the average operation time by about 97 percent compared with non-pilot operations during the same period last year.

Yangshan Phase IV Automated Wharf has launched the proactive machine inspection business model, increasing the daily average inspection volume by approximately 2.7 times compared to that of last year.

For imported goods with fixed product names, repeated imports, and high timeliness requirements, the tax exemption review time has been reduced from one to two working days to within one minute.

The "ERP networking + rapid review" model has been promoted, reducing and exempting 351 million yuan in taxes within the year

Tax payment

China's first specialized tax court has been established to realize centralized jurisdiction over tax administrative cases. A total of 113 cases were heard by the two-tier tax court throughout the year.

The first administrative reconsideration simplified procedure in the tax system has been developed, clarifying its application to four types of cases and reducing the review time from 60 days to 30 days.

The advanced tax ruling system has been implemented, and three completed cases of advance ruling were published A multi-language and multi-channel tax consultation service system has been launched, enabling tax consultation in eight foreign languages with the "ask freely, answer in your native language" approach.

The tax and fee policies have been accurately sent to 6.326 million targets, with a success rate of 98.17 percent.

A new handling model of "one-stop tax and fee payment" has been launched. Over 240,000 enterprises (covering approximately 4.296 million employees) benefited from the "combined declaration for social security and housing fund" system throughout the year.

An additional 117 shops eligible for departure tax refunds and three centralized refund stations for "buy and refund immediately" have been established, contributing leading to an 86.7 percent year-on-year increase in sales amount eligible for departure tax refunds.

In the Lin-gang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the preferential policies on the stamp duty for offshore trade have been piloted and tested, with a total of 96.077 million yuan stamp duty reduced or exempted.

Dispute resolution

The measures to promote temporary arbitration for foreign-related commercial maritime disputes have been developed and implemented, with China's first-ever foreign-related maritime temporary arbitration case adjudicated in Shanghai.

Among the arbitrators from Shanghai's arbitration institutions, there were a total of 15,926 participants in case hearings, concluding 12,940 cases. The case closure rate was 106 percent, an increase of 29 percent year-on-year. The average handling time per case was 150.1 days, a decrease of 7.4 days compared to the previous year.

The judicial appraisal fee standards set by the government have been adjusted and optimized, with a reduction of up to 70 percent in the rates for asset evaluations exceeding 1 million yuan.

Shanghai has upgraded its one-stop dispute resolution platform for international commercial affairs at courts. The platform has attracted 25 professional foreign-related commercial arbitration, mediation, and notarization institutions. It has been used online 63,000 times.

The efficiency of handling commercial cases has been accelerated, with the average trial time for first instance commercial cases reduced to 48 days.

Shanghai has expanded the scope of small claims lawsuits in accordance with the law, increasing the application rate to 91.53 percent.

An online filing mechanism for second instance cases has been established, reducing the transfer time of appeal cases by 18.9 days year-on-year.

More than 90,000 litigation-related enterprise information inquiry services have been provided on the Shanghai United Credit Service Platform, helping 2,454 enterprises secure loans totaling more than 2.4 billion yuan.

Market competition

An intellectual property "one matter" integrated service platform has been launched, providing one-stop services for more than 90 intellectual property rights in seven categories:

6,822 PCT international patent applications, 31.5 billion yuan in patent and trademark pledge registrations, 20,000 patent license transfers, and more than 7,000 patent products filed.

Shanghai has explored the pilot registration of data intellectual property rights, issued the Interim Measures of Shanghai for IP Registration and Evidence Preservation of Data Products, established and officially launched the Shanghai Data Product IP Management Platform, issued IP registration certificates for more than 200 data products, and cultivated more than 100 data IP service providers.

The first data product registration pledge involves the financing of 100 million yuan.

For engineering procurement projects exceeding 4 million yuan and suitable to be provided by SMEs, we have ensured that the reserved share for SMEs is increased to more than 40 percent in a phased manner.

Business insolvency

The "one matter" reform of enterprise bankruptcy information verification has been implemented, enabling online inquiries for 10 types of information such as personnel, vehicles, real estate, enterprise records, taxation and social insurance involved in cases. So far, 1,210 applications have been submitted to access this information.

The online system for handling the entire process of bankruptcy cases has been improved. A total of 2,738 bankruptcy and compulsory liquidation cases have been settled, resolving debts of 90.32 billion yuan and revitalizing assets worth 17.69 billion yuan. The average processing time of bankruptcy cases has been reduced by 121 days.

II. Action for improving enterprise services

Government services

Driven by the national-level "13+8" key initiative for "efficiently accomplishing one matter" in two batches in 2024, efforts have been intensified in reforms. The first batch of "13 matters" have all been launched ahead of schedule, and six of the new "eight matters" have been implemented ahead of time.

Shanghai has promoted the whole-process online handling of "one integrated license" and issued a total of 83,000 such licenses.

The "021" assistance service system has been optimized. The scope of online manual assistance services in Shanghai has been expanded, providing more than 719,000 instances of assistance with a satisfaction rate of 98.42 percent.

More than 430,000 administrative matters have been processed via the notification and commitment system, reducing more than 860,000 trips for certification.

The replacement of certificates concerning illegal records with special credit reports has fully implemented in 41 fields across the city. So far, 35,000 reports have been issued, replacing more than 934,000 certificates.

Policy services

More than 1,000 policy documents of the city can be directly accessed from the matter handling page of the "Government Online-Offline Shanghai”, with immediate processing available after reading.

Relying on the exclusive space for individuals and enterprises, a total of 5,538 policies have been pushed, with 173.2 million clicks.

"Suishenban" Enterprise Cloud has added access to 64 new enterprise services.

Shanghai has established a "service package" task force mechanism for key enterprises, providing them with a service team of three members. The bureau-level cadre of the competent department of an industry serves as the chief service officer for each enterprise, while the department-level cadres are selected by industry departments and local district governments (or administrative committees) to serve as service officers.

Park services

Shanghai has explored and formulated the Guideline for Constructing and Serving the Business Environment in Parks.

We have ensured the access of buildings and parks to basic telecom operation resources, properly handled all kinds of complaints, and resolved over 63 percent building problems in access to resources and business development across the city.

Foreign-related services

International Services Shanghai, a multilingual portal for the Shanghai municipal government, has published a total of 15,550 articles, the cumulative number of views of content on platforms has reached 61.947 million, and 248 information guides have been provided on various service matters.

The one-stop service stations for international travelers have been put into use at Terminal 1 and 2 of Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Termina1 of Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. They have received 164,000 inbound international travelers for service consultation and handling.

Shanghai has carried out five pioneering entry-exit reforms, including the "pilot implementation of electronic port visa", and has issued 220 electronic port visas.

The China's first standardization platform for foreign-funded enterprises has been established. More than 30 foreign-funded enterprises have participated in the formulation of more than 60 national standards and six local standards.

III. Action for monitoring quality and efficiency of law enforcement

Comprehensive supervision

Shanghai has promoted cross-departmental comprehensive regulatory reform in 39 key industries such as the catering industry.

The construction of a unified and comprehensive law enforcement system has been promoted, with more than 2,300 laws and regulations, more than 3,300 administrative law enforcement matters, and more than 11,000 subdivided law enforcement cases included in the database.

The application and popularization of the "check code" has been piloted. The city has used the "check code" to carry out 10,316 administrative inspections on 7,621 enterprises, and received 4,896 law enforcement comments.

Smart supervision

Shanghai has deepened the construction of the National Market Supervision Digital Pilot Zone (Shanghai) and taken the lead in creating 45 application scenarios for five major sectors: market access and operation, comprehensive supervision, law enforcement and rights protection, quality foundation, and comprehensive management.

Shanghai has fully implemented a warning-triggering supervision mechanism for Grade A food production enterprises. A total of 217 Grade A food production enterprises have triggered the warning, 213 of which have received closed-loop supervision and inspection, while inspections for the remaining four are currently underway.

Shanghai has explored the use of intelligent measures for graded and categorized supervision of elevator-related risks, resulting in reduced inspection frequency. Remote monitoring devices have been installed in 23,100 residential elevators, shortening the city's average rescue time for trapped passengers to 12 minutes and 19 seconds.

Credit supervision

Graded and categorized credit supervision in 60 sectors across the city has achieved effective results, basically realizing full coverage of key areas.

Shanghai has improved the "One Thing" of public credit information repair. More than 19,000 repair applications were processed during the year. The average completion time for these applications was 4.11 days, lower than the national requirement of 10 working days.

Supervision of new industries, new business forms, and new models

Shanghai has established 34 lists of non-penalty items for minor violations, covering 28 lines of law enforcement. This has resulted in over 880,000 business entities not facing administrative penalties for minor infractions, leading to a total fine reduction and exemption amount exceeding 1.1 billion yuan.

The market regulation and taxation authorities have refrained lawfully from implementing administrative coercive measures against over 84,000 business entities.

Shanghai has innovated services for the new business form of street vending, clarifying requirements for the involvement of urban management enforcement departments in planning and providing services for designated street vending points, such as characteristic markets, outdoor stalls, diversion points, and points under control.

Shanghai has supported the development of intelligent connected vehicles, issuing test license plates to 847 intelligent connected vehicles of 37 enterprises on demand, with a total testing duration of 1.49 million hours.

Supervision and compliance guidance

Shanghai has enhanced compliance guidance for business entities in law enforcement fields such as public security, fire safety, ecological environment protection, cultural markets, hygiene and health, human resources and social security, and civil affairs.

Shanghai has built the "1+16" municipal and district-level "Blue Whale" enterprise protection workstation and opened an online special service window of "Shanghai Enterprise Manager–Your Protector", actively providing legal consultation, risk prevention, internal control improvements, and other services for enterprises.

Shanghai has improved the compliance management system in the field of work safety, issuing Guidelines for Compliance with Work Safety Standards and Regulations for Hazardous Chemical Enterprises and the Guidelines for Compliance with Work Safety Standards and Regulations for Industrial and Trading Enterprises.

IV. Regional benchmarking innovation action

Building a comprehensive demonstration zone for business environment in Pudong New Area

The "Market Access upon Commitment System Reform" has been recognized as one of the top ten innovative practices for optimizing the business environment in China, with the reform already rolled out across 22 industries, including bookstores and fitness centers.

The Shanghai Data Exchange has listed over 4,000 data products, with transaction volumes topping 4 billion yuan.

The first sea export order under the "9610" customs supervision code for cross-border e-commerce was processed at Shanghai port.

Pudong New Area has introduced four regulations in specific areas such as "commercial mediation" and 10 management measures such as "Deepening the Reform of Business Scope Registration".

Lin-gang Special Area creates a new highland for business environment and institutional innovation

Foreign-funded liners completed 121,500 TEUs of coastal piggyback business, up 87.3 percent year on year.

China's first e-port visa was issued, 1,344 enterprises were included in the list of invited entities, and 35 international experts benefited from the entry convenience provided by the e-port visa.

Lin-gang Special Area took the lead in issuing classified and graded management measures for cross-border data flows and released China's first batch of field-level general data lists. The Lin-gang Special Area Cross-Border Data Flow Service Center was put into use, becoming the first primary-level service center set up by the Internet Information Office in China and the first service center for cross-border data flow in Shanghai. It has completed the general data list registration for four enterprises and the evaluation registration for seven scenario-based pilot projects.

Hongqiao International Central Business District creates a distinctive business environment for international trade

The Hongqiao Professional Services Alliance has been established, bringing together over 70 professional service providers.

Dongfang Silu, a multimodal transporter, has launched the China-Europe freight train service to far Europe, connecting more than 100 cities in 12 countries.

Hongqiao International Central Business District has strengthened the cooperation and exchange under the "Silk Road e-commerce" initiative. The United Nations/International Organizations Procurement Enterprise Sustainable Development Service Center has helped over 800 Chinese enterprises become suppliers of the United Nations and other international organizations.

V. Action of jointly building business environment

Shanghai has initiated a pioneering "Media Observer" business environment co-construction mechanism. A team of 50 "media observers" has been established, and 11 business environment co-construction projects involving media observers have been launched in succession.

Shanghai has conducted eight "Business Environment Tour" promotional activities.

China Institute for Rule-oriented Business Environment has been established, appointing 30 legal experts from across the country as expert committee members for the rule-oriented business environment construction.

The enterprise service cloud platform has played a significant role, processing 23,786 enterprise requests, including 17,192 key enterprise service package requests, 200 online service cloud requests, 344 calls from the 12345 hotline, 313 "Yiqifu" requests, and 5,737 other requests.

 

Source: Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission