On November 9th, a high-level mobilization conference was held in Hangzhou, a city in eastern China, putting forward to create a world-class business environment and strive to be an demonstration area for the high quality development of China’s private economy. Focusing on government services, investment and trade, industrial development, entrepreneurship and innovation, ecology and life, the environment for the rule of law, six major initiatives and twenty-eight measures were been introduced in the conference.
“These measures, which involve several aspects, such as the construction of hardware and software environment and industrial development, are the most gold-rich and powerful reform efforts that has been made in Hangzhou in recent years, aiming to inject new energy into Hangzhou to create a world-class business environment and promoting high-quality economic development,” said an official from Hangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission.
In recent years, Hangzhou has been working hard to create a world-class business environment in accordance with the international standards, rules and practices, continuously optimizing institutions and mechanisms, upgrading the development of the real economy entirely, and promoting high-quality economic development with first-class business environment. Thus, a positive interaction between the high-level business environment and the high-quality economic development has been formed gradually.
It took only half an hour for Cheng Yaling to get a business license through the self-service business service terminal. The company she and her business partners set up successfully settled in the Hangzhou Xiasha Science and Technology City.
With the promotion of business registration reform, the process and time needed for government services has been greatly shortened, and new market subjects have sprung up. In the first half of 2018 alone, 64 thousand new companies has been set up, a year-on-year growth of nearly 30%. Hangzhou has also stepped up tax cuts to help companies boost their competitiveness. From January to September this year, the city’s tax authorities has cut an extra 15.43% of tax revenues from companies, compared with the same period last year, further reducing companies’ tax burden, cutting down their operating costs and financing costs.
As for small and medium-sized companies and new economy companies, in addition to the tax cuts, financial awards and grants, and other support policies, Hangzhou has specifically funded and established of a number of guide funds. Among them, the guide fund for entrepreneurship and investment has invested 473 projects by September 2018, leading to nearly 5 billion Yuan of social investment, guiding social capital into innovation and business. With its support, many platforms for “Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation” has been established, such as crowd innovation spaces, technology business incubators, and featured towns.
In addition, Hangzhou also provides non-local investors with a series of free special services, such as investment consulting, investment promotion, investment protection and so on.
One of the beneficiaries of these support policies is Wedoctor, which was founded in 2010. As a practitioner of “online hospital”, Wedoctor has grown rapidly with the support of the Hangzhou municipal government. In May this year, it became world’s only healthcare company to make into the list of “World’s Top 30 Most Valuable Private Technology Companies”. So far, Wedoctor has developed into the biggest healthcare technology “unicorn” in the world with a valuation of 5.5 billion dollars.
“The government is responsible for the sun and rain, while the companies are responsible for the healthy growth. This is the true portrayal of Hangzhou’s business environment.” Liao Jieyuan, the founder of Wedoctor, said that for private companies, apart from developing their own features, the most important thing is to resonate with the government in the same frequency.
“Take good care of the private economy like your own eyes and treat private companies like your family.” Zhou Jiangyong, a member of the standing committee of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee and the secretary of Hangzhou Municipal Committee, pointed out that the private economy is the endogenous force for the economic development of a region, while the business environment is the sunshine, rain and fertile soil that nurtures and strengthens the private economy.
In Hangzhou, where private economy is an important market power, the vitality of the private economy and the trend of private companies are the wind vanes for Hangzhou’s business environment and economic development quality.
“I like Hangzhou very much. The Hangzhou Municipal Committee and the government’s services to enterprises have touched me. I hope to incubate more high-tech companies for Hangzhou through my efforts,” said Ding Lei, the chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of NetEase, passionately. NetEase is a leading Internet technology company in China, which has a good reputation in various business areas, such as game, e-commerce, news, e-mail, culture and entertainment, online education, and so on.
With the business environment ever optimizing, Hangzhou has gradually risen to be a leading city with strong private economy in China. Out of the list of “China’s Top 500 Private Enterprises in 2018”, 36 companies are from Hangzhou, whose number of listed companies have ranked first in the country for 16 consecutive year.
“It is considered as an important base for promoting high-quality development to optimize the business environment.” Zhou Jiangyong said that the municipal government will adhere to the perfect combination of effective market and active government, keep improving the industry development policy system, continue to provide “the waiter style” services, and make all efforts to create an environment conducive to the healthy growth of enterprises and entrepreneurs. He said that they will not only make nonlocal companies willing to invest in Hangzhou, but also let local companies develop better in Hangzhou and become “evergreen trees”.
Source: Hangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission
