Shanghai's law-based business environment improving

Shanghai's law-based business environment has continuously been improving in the past few years, the city's legislators were told on Thursday.

Within the past five years, Shanghai has concluded 1.12 million commercial cases in the first instance, soaring 88.7 percent from the previous five years, said Jia Yu, acting president of Shanghai High People's Court, in a work report delivered to the ongoing first session of the 16th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.

Meanwhile, 31 measures were enacted to create fine environments based on the rule of law to protect entrepreneurs' innovation and entrepreneurship, and the local courts are resolute to prevent economic disputes from being recognized as criminal offences, Jia said.

With the constant optimization of bankruptcy procedures, the number of closed cases of bankruptcy and liquidation surged from 161 in 2018 to 1,288 in 2022, which revitalized 65 billion yuan ($9.6 billion) of assets and cleared up more than 250 billion yuan of credits and debts, Jia added.

The city's procuratorate also made efforts to optimize business environments based on the rule of law.

A total of 40 enterprises and 62 people have been exempted from prosecution since 2020 in accordance with the law, said Chen Yong, acting chief procurator of the Shanghai People's Procuratorate, during his work report to the legislators.