Sichuan's business pilot program sets example with helpful trade environment

As a pilot area for business environment reform and opening-up, Sichuan Tianfu New Area is dedicated to developing experiences that are replicable across the country.

Located in Southwest China's Sichuan province, the new area has established a new system to serve business operations. This encompasses a business' life cycle, from establishment to the bidding process, property registration to market regulation. The effort gives full play to the area's institutional innovations and aims to stimulate the vitality of market players.

"It is very convenient to complete all business applications in 20 minutes at one window," said a manager of the Chengdu branch of NCS Testing Technology, surnamed Wen.

Wen recently went to the new area to apply for the company's property transfers.

In the past, it might have taken more than 10 days to apply due to a long process of information check and multiple material submissions, Wen said.

To reform the property registration service, the park city construction bureau of the new area has streamlined the process to allow multiple applications at one window.

This has helped reduce the period of dealing with this process from four workdays to one hour. It marks an increase of 98.9 percent in work efficiency, a local official said.

In addition, the new area has allowed applicants to apply for affairs, such as online registration of property rental online and preliminary review of tax, through its WeChat public account, optimizing its online services.

The online review of property registration has helped residents receive services without the need for a second visit. They can process matters online or offline at a single window, enjoying the benefits of internet plus.

To date, the account has 30,000 followers, with 25,000 of them from 268 cities around the world applying for services online, official data showed.

Apart from administrative services, the new area has given full play to cooperation among taxation, banking and insurance regulatory departments and financial institutions to help micro businesses with funding.

It has established a credit system based on the tax payments of a business, using it as the basis for granting credit.

One of the beneficiaries is Zhongchuangsiyi Industry, a Sichuan-based construction company.

"The 3 million yuan ($463,320) of fiduciary loan was quite prompt and helped us launch our new engineering project in time," said a manager of the company, surnamed Cheng.

The company had to stop the new project due to cash withdrawn earlier, Cheng said, adding that it was a relief to receive the loan thanks to the help of the new area.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the new area has cooperated with China Construction Bank to develop a product for granting credit and reducing tax to help enterprises struggling to resume work.

As of December 2020, the taxation administration of the new area has helped 378 enterprises get loans worth more than 203 million yuan. This has played a role in ensuring employment, livelihoods and industrial supply of market players.

Based on digital development, the new area has developed e-platforms for dealing with legal cases online.

Improving the regulations for lawsuits online is a crucial part in the reform of streamlining the civil procedure, local officials said.

The people's court of the new area has set up an e-platform serving all categories of lawsuits online.

The platform integrates online functions of the whole process, including the filing of a lawsuit, registration, answering charges in court, evidence exchange and the court hearing.

It enables the court to realize intelligent identity verification and deliver a judgment.

An attorney surnamed Wang has helped his client, a local internet bank, to file a lawsuit over a loan dispute through the platform.

With the platform, the lawsuit can be completed online instead of visiting the people's court again and again, Wang said.

By the end of 2020, the platform received a total of 1,407 lawsuits and 598 of them have been registered.