Fujian steps up efforts to mobilize innovation and entrepreneurship

Fujian recently rolled out a government guideline on further improving its business climate so as to unleash the full potential of innovation and entrepreneurship in the province.

The province is set to take a flurry of measures to ramp up innovation, according to the guideline.

Within this year, provincial laboratories in the fields of optoelectronic information, energy materials, chemical engineering and energy storage batteries will be set up in the cities of Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou and Ningde.

Fujian will accelerate the pace of instituting systems conductive to the transformation and application of research results and the protection of intellectual property rights while making more efforts to support some economically strong cities such as Fuzhou, Xiamen and Quanzhou to play a spearheading role in reform and innovation.

The province will also speed up construction of 47 industrial parks including the southeast China big data industrial park and build a coordinated development platform across the province in terms of technology, industry and talent cooperation.

On top of innovation, Fujian will ratchet up industrial growth, the guideline says. It will continue to prioritize the growth of pillar industries while fostering emerging sectors such as integrated circuits and new energy vehicles.

More efforts shall be made to support the growth of service industries including logistics, tourism and finance and boost their integration with the manufacturing sector.

The province is also eyeing the development of characteristic modern agriculture. According to the guideline, it plans to construct 1,000 standardized demonstration bases and 1,000 primary processing centers for high-quality agro-products and cultivate 1,000 key agro-enterprises at or above the provincial level.

The digitalization of traditional segments is set to be a key task, with the fund specially set up by the provincial government to accelerate the process increased to 12 billion yuan this year.

Meanwhile, Fujian will ramp up talent recruitment. According to the upgraded version of the government talent introduction initiative, roughly 150 high-profile talents and 20 groups will be selected annually for government subsidies and rewards.

The province also intends to increase support for private business growth. According to the document, a fund valued at over 10 billion yuan ($1.49 billion) will be established to ease business's financing difficulties.

In addition, it will take solid steps to further improve government services for enterprises. By the end of the year, the approval time for provincial social investment projects will be reduced to less than 40 percent of the legal time limit. The time for the approval of new business registration and engineering construction projects is targeted at five work days and less than 90 work days respectively.

Meanwhile, it will continue to facilitate customs clearing. By the end of 2021, it aims to slash the overall clearance time for import and export commodities by half compared with that of 2017.