The Open Character of a City —— Shanghai Path to Promote High-quality Development (Part Two)
[A magnificent new era of 70 years of struggle — — Promote high-quality development research bank]
Guangming Daily reporter Shang Jie Yan Weiqi Xu Danlu
A city has the character of a city.
"The reason why Shanghai has developed so well is closely related to its open character, open advantages and open actions." On November 5, 2018, at the opening ceremony of the first China International Import Expo, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader introduced Shanghai to the heads of 172 countries, regions and international organizations.
Shanghai, which should be born and prospered by opening up, has been leading the national opening-up trend since the founding of New China, especially after the reform and opening up. In the process of promoting a new round of high-level opening up all over the country, how can Shanghai continue to be the vanguard of national reform and opening up, play the role of pioneer, demonstration and breakthrough, and expand space and stimulate motivation for promoting high-quality development?
Shanghai is exploring and practicing.
The open field is constantly expanding.
The opening-up of China’s financial industry started in Shanghai. The first foreign bank and the first foreign insurance company in China were born here.
On April 10th, in the Shanghai Representative Office of Huaihai Middle Road, Nomura Oriental International Securities was in full swing to prepare for its opening. As the first domestic application and the first batch of newly established foreign-controlled securities firms, Nomura Holdings Co., Ltd. from Japan plans to hold 51% of the shares.
On the same day, Junkang Iiyama, executive chairman of Nomura Holdings Asia (excluding Japan) and chairman of China Committee, said that Nomura set up a representative office in Shanghai in 1980s and has been a witness and participant in the opening-up of China’s financial industry. "At the Boao Forum last year, as a representative of the participating enterprises, I felt the confidence and determination of China to further expand the opening of the financial industry." Fortunately, we can seize the opportunity of China’s new round of opening to the outside world, and Shanghai is always at the forefront of opening to the outside world. Nomura is full of confidence in the future.
Not only in finance and securities, but also in education and medical care, which are closely related to citizens’ lives, Shanghai has also taken a new step of opening up.
Shanghai Yongxing Gynecology Hospital, located in Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone, is the first wholly foreign-owned hospital in China. The settlement of this "foreign hospital" benefited from the pilot of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. In 2013 and 2014, the Shanghai Free Trade Zone released the restrictions on the establishment of wholly foreign-owned medical institutions and the total investment, which made Japan Yongxing Group see the opportunity.
"At the end of 2014, we applied for running the hospital. At that time, many people reminded that in China, a permit had to run many departments and cover more than a dozen chapters. We were worried that we couldn’t handle it, so we hired a consulting company for guidance at a cost of $20,000. In the process of actual settlement, the Free Trade Zone Management Committee and Pudong New Area supported it in many ways, and the bid was particularly smooth. The US$ 20,000 was a waste. " Fan Yu, president of the hospital, said with a smile.
In the past two years, the first similar "foreign institutions" have sprung up in Shanghai: the first wholly foreign-owned credit investigation and rating agency — — Moody’s (China) Co., Ltd., the first wholly foreign-owned vocational training institution — — PricewaterhouseCoopers Business Skills Training (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., the first wholly foreign-owned travel agency — — Yixin Dalv (Shanghai) International Travel Service Co., Ltd., the first wholly foreign-owned performance agency — — "Bandai Nanmenggong (Shanghai) Interactive Entertainment Co., Ltd." … … In 2018 alone, there were 413 new service industry expansion and opening-up projects in Shanghai, and a large number of projects were officially put into operation, which stimulated the vitality of the market.
Behind the cluster of "foreign institutions", it is the result of Shanghai’s continuous relaxation of market access, steady opening-up of financial industry, service industry and manufacturing industry, continuous benchmarking of international first-class and optimization of business environment.
Continuous optimization of open environment
Expanding opening up on the basis of high-level opening up requires greater courage and boldness. In 2018, Shanghai formulated and implemented "100 measures for opening wider to the outside world", and put forward five aspects, 20 tasks and 100 measures for opening wider to the outside world, among which it was clearly proposed to deepen the opening up in key areas such as telecommunications, education, medical care and culture. At present, all 93 local powers have been implemented.
The bottleneck problems encountered by some enterprises in their development have been solved. In recent years, taking advantage of the east wind of "One Belt, One Road" construction, the orders received by Volvo Construction Equipment China Headquarters have greatly increased, but it has encountered the problem of offshore settlement. Under the original supervision system, large-scale machinery should be sent directly to Africa from Korean factories, and the goods could not be settled in China without customs declaration. Enterprises have to bypass Singapore to complete it, which is time-consuming and laborious and increases costs.
The Jinqiao Management Committee of Shanghai Free Trade Zone has learned this difficult problem, communicated and negotiated with the customs, the People’s Bank of China, the safe and other departments for many times, and solved this problem by building an information comprehensive platform and a "white list" system. Zhan Xu, vice president and director of the company, said that this move not only greatly saved the cost of the company, but also increased the offshore trade volume of the company by four times. More importantly, the Shanghai headquarters has obtained the international contract flow, income flow and capital flow, and changed from the original "paper headquarters" to a veritable headquarters.
At the same time, Shanghai has made great efforts to deepen the business environment. In 2018, Shanghai launched 56 reform measures in one breath against the top ten evaluation indicators of the World Bank’s business environment, and completed two batches of 198 pilot projects of "separation of licenses" reform, with an average reduction of 30.5% in work links and 52.8% in work time. At present, more than 99% of new foreign investment and changes are handled by filing, and the processing time is reduced to three working days.
More and more international enterprises feel the change. In July 2018, the Tesla Super Factory project was officially signed and settled in Shanghai. Five months later, the project was granted the construction permit, which achieved the signing, land acquisition and construction in the same year, and was praised by Tesla CEO elon musk as "amazing Shanghai speed".
The continuous expansion of the open field and the continuous optimization of the open environment have attracted investors from all over the world. More than 50,000 foreign-funded enterprises have become an important force supporting Shanghai’s economic development. They account for 2% of the city’s enterprises, contributing 1/5 of Shanghai’s employment, 1/4 of GDP and 1/3 of tax revenue, and creating about 2/3 of the city’s foreign trade import and export and the total industrial output value above designated size.
The scale of attracting investment continued to climb, the structure of attracting investment continued to be optimized, and the quantity and quality of the headquarters economy improved. As early as 2002, Shanghai took the lead in introducing the interim measures to encourage multinational companies to set up regional headquarters, which have been revised and improved many times in recent years to promote the scale and energy level of regional headquarters. By the end of 2018, Shanghai had settled in 677 headquarters of multinational companies and 444 foreign R&D centers, and the number of headquarters continued to lead the country. A large number of global leading multinational corporations have settled in Shanghai, showing a good trend of "being in Shanghai for the world".
"Shanghai experience" is replicated and promoted to the whole country.
In the "Double Eleven" in 2018, the number of cross-border e-commerce orders in Shanghai reached 2.75 million votes, reaching 1 million votes per hour at the peak, the transaction volume reached 390 million yuan that day, and the customs clearance rate reached 98.4%, basically achieving "second customs clearance". E-commerce companies such as Tmall and JD.COM reported that the processing efficiency of Shanghai Platform ranked first in China.
Behind consumers’ enjoyment of "Happy Shopping" is Shanghai’s unremitting efforts to continuously strengthen the construction of an open platform.
The declaration time for import and export goods is reduced from one day to half an hour; The entry and exit procedures for ships have been reduced from two days to two hours. On April 11th, at the Shanghai Port Center, the reporter experienced the convenience brought by the single window of international trade in China (Shanghai). Since the construction started in February 2014, it has been upgraded and improved many times. At present, this window connects 22 departments and serves 270,000 enterprises, saving enterprises more than 2 billion yuan every year.
The establishment of a single window in international trade has turned the former manual errands into data running, and also made "information exchange, mutual recognition of supervision and mutual assistance in law enforcement" a reality. At present, this single window supports 1/3 of the country’s import and export trade volume and has become the largest single platform for the global import and export business. In 2015, the General Office of the State Council officially issued a document to promote the construction experience of Shanghai single window to the whole country.
And this is just one of the "Shanghai experience" replicated and promoted by the Shanghai Free Trade Zone to the whole country.
After the 1.0 version of the overall plan, the 2.0 version of the deepening plan and the 3.0 version of the comprehensive deepening plan, the Shanghai Free Trade Zone has always adhered to the pioneering and institutional innovation for five years, and more than 120 institutional innovations have been replicated and promoted nationwide. In particular, the national treatment plus negative list management model before foreign investment access has become the most thorough and widely implemented achievement of the free trade zone reform, which has been replicated and promoted throughout the country.
China International Import Expo is another open platform that Shanghai focuses on. On April 12th, Liu Fuxue, deputy director of China International Import Expo Bureau and vice president of National Convention and Exhibition Center, introduced that compared with the first session, the exhibition area of the second session of enterprises will increase by 30,000 square meters, a unified release platform for new products, technologies and policies will be added, an outdoor exhibition hall for displaying large machinery and vehicles will be added, and a high-end consumer goods area & HELIP; … Shanghai has fulfilled its promise of "running a level, achieving results and getting better and better" with actions.
Accelerate the construction of a global asset management center, accelerate the construction of an integrated platform in the Yangtze River Delta, and enlarge and strengthen the international import and export commodity display and trading platform … … Shanghai is focusing on building an international economic, financial, trade, shipping and scientific and technological innovation center, continuing to open to the outside world in an all-round way and enhancing its ability to allocate global resources.
"In the new era, Shanghai has to undertake the new mission entrusted by the central government, and expanding opening up is the only way." Li Qiang, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, said that the promotion of Shanghai’s urban energy level depends on expanding openness to gather resource elements, and the enhancement of core competitiveness should be considered and practiced under open conditions. In the future development, Shanghai will continue to adhere to the policy of opening up and opening up, and strive to build Shanghai into a new round of all-round opening-up highland in China, a bridgehead serving the Belt and Road Initiative, an Asia-Pacific gateway for allocating global resources, and a strategic support for China’s approach to the center of the world stage, and take the lead in building a new pattern of all-round opening up.
Guangming Daily (April 22, 2019, 01 edition)