Shanghai makes doing business better

Shanghai has pledged to continue to optimize its business environment so as to improve its competitive edge on the global stage.

According to the World Bank Group's Doing Business 2020 study, released on Oct 24, China climbed to 31st place in terms of ease of doing business, up from 46th a year earlier and 78th in 2017, indicating one of the strongest improvements worldwide in the 12 months ending May.

Shanghai, an important example city in this study, has strived to build a world-class business-friendly environment and constantly improve the satisfaction and sense of gain of market entities, referring to the highest level in the world, according to the municipal government.

Since the end of 2017, Shanghai has started to push the business environment reform, and increased its efforts in recent years to promote opening-up and enhance market vitality. The city's business environment has significantly improved, especially in the aspects of granting building permission, access to power supply, opening businesses, cross-border trade and taxation, the government said.

In a further effort, Shanghai released an implementation plan to optimize its business environment in March. The plan, absorbing the suggestions submitted by the World Bank last year, put forward a series of measures and suggestions to further promote reform. It also announced 20 additional measures to deepen its reform.

After implementing these reform measures, the time it takes for businesses to carry out numerous affairs with related government departments is expected to fall by 40 to 50 percent.

"We believe Shanghai is one of China's cities with the best business environment in terms of technological innovation, financing and talent. That is the reason why Sanofi will continue to increase its investment to Shanghai, establishing its China R&D center and Asia-Pacific R&D hub here," said Pius S. Hornstein, general manager and country chair of Sanofi China, a pharmaceutical manufacturer.

"Following with favorable government regulatory and better business environment, Sanofi will seize opportunities, speed up the introduction of innovative products, and enrich digitalized innovation and application.

"We will grow together with China's economy and our partners, benefit more Chinese patients, and commence on the new journey of future development," Hornstein said.

"As the second-largest economy in the world, China plays an important role in the development of healthcare sector in the world. In recent years, China's good business environment and policy support for the registration and approval of innovative drugs have brought new opportunities for the development of China's pharmaceutical industry," said Wang Xinguang, head of corporate affairs, market access and commercial at the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Wang said GSK will continue expanding its innovation investment in China, accelerate the integration of China's biomedical industry with the international community and empower the development of local biomedical innovation.

"China is promoting all-around opening-up in various fields and is actively creating a stable, transparent and predictable investment environment. These measures have brought great opportunities for the development of foreign-funded enterprises in China," said Zhang Zhiqiang, managing director of ABB China.

"We believe that China's further opening-up will be conducive to promoting globalization, promoting trade liberalization and facilitation, expanding innovation and development in various fields, and forming a new situation of mutual benefit and win-win results," Zhang added, noting that continuous optimization of the domestic business environment has strengthened determination to further deepen development in the Chinese market.

In recent years, ABB has signed strategic cooperation agreements with the Shanghai, Guangdong province and Chongqing governments to continue its expansion of investment and optimize its industrial layout in the market.

According to the city's Commission of Commerce, 701 multinational companies had set up regional headquarters in Shanghai by the end of August with 451 setting up regional research and development centers.

The city remains one of the country's top destinations for foreign capital, hosting 4,661 new foreign investment projects from January to August, up 47.8 percent year-on-year.

In its next step, Shanghai will continue to upgrade its work of optimizing business, including further expanding the coverage of reform, expanding the benefits of enterprises, striving for greater progress in business environment optimization and injecting strong momentum into high-quality development of Shanghai, according to the municipal government.