Shanghai pledges to slash red tape on business creation
New online platform to be in place by end of the month, meaning new businesses will only need to go to ‘one window’, as government departments share data to facilitate more seamless procedures
The Shanghai authorities say they are cutting business red tape, including slashing the time needed to launch a new company, in an attempt to give the eastern commercial powerhouse an edge in wooing more international trade and investment.
Officials told a news conference on Monday they will launch a new online platform by the end of this month, which will allow the time to complete some regulatory procedures, for instance, in just six days, down from the current 22 days.
The head of the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission Ma Chunlei said the city was ramping up the pace of its business reforms in line with the World Bank’s latest “Doing Business 2018” report, released last October.
Previously, setting up a business in the city needed several governmental bodies to be involved – including the tax, administrative and commerce bureaux, and the police – all of which had their own regulatory procedures and formalities.
But with the new platform in place, new businesses will only need to go to “one window”, said Ma, with those various entities set to work closer together, sharing data to facilitate more seamless procedures.
