Local governments plan more steps to attract investment

Local government officials are stepping up measures to further improve the business environment and make it easier for the public to access administrative services as part of the ongoing efforts to attract more domestic and foreign investment.

Government officials from Wuhan of Hubei province, Guiyang of Guizhou province, Xiamen of Fujian province and Foshan of Guangdong province vowed to continue efforts to lower the market threshold and costs for enterprises at a policy briefing hosted by the State Council Information Office of China on Friday.

Government officials from Wuhan of Hubei province, Guiyang of Guizhou province, Xiamen of Fujian province and Foshan of Guangdong province attend a policy briefing hosted by the State Council Information Office of China in Beijing on July 27, 2018. [Photo by Yuan Shaoda/China SCIO]

Chen Ruifeng, executive vice-mayor of Wuhan, said the city has rolled out measures to ensure that the waiting time for applicants is restricted to one hour at government offices. The time required for registration, transaction and tax payments involving real estate services will be limited to within 45 minutes, he said.

The city government will also work to ensure that more administrative services can be accessed online and the public only need to make one single trip to government offices to get things done, he said.

In the first half of this year, the city registered 906,000 new market entities and its GDP grew by 8.2 percent year-on-year, he added.

Chen Yan, mayor of Guiyang, said the city will work to establish a transparent and efficient public service environment and create a more enabling and convenient business environment that will help lower costs for enterprises.

The municipal government will also deepen reforms to establish an e-platform for accessing interconnected government services, and solve the problem of sharing and recognition of electronic licenses, archives and materials, he said.

Huang Qiang, executive vice-mayor of Xiamen, said more than 1,600 administrative services in the city only require applicants to make one single trip, and 403 services do not require the appearance of the applicant in person.

"Our target is to ensure that the public, including enterprises, can access administrative services as easily as online shopping," he said.

Zhu Wei, mayor of Foshan, said the city offers tailored services to enterprises, whereby firms have to submit only one form and other relevant materials when they access administrative services just once.

The amount of time required to open a business has been shortened to five days, and the city offers 24-hour business registration services throughout the year, he said.