1 Definition of the connotation of the business environment of the International Trade Center
The International Trade Center is a unique regional development position of Shanghai, and the business environment associated with the construction of the International Trade Center has its own development rules and conditions of existence. Compared with general administrative regions, the business environment of the International Trade Center should adopt higher standards and stricter requirements in the evaluation dimensions of internationalization, rule of law and marketization. The construction of Shanghai’s international trade center should be built on the principle of competitive neutrality, pre-entry national treatment, intellectual property protection, labor standards upgrading, environmental standards upgrading, etc., to establish a set of initial alignment with the highest international standards of business environment evaluation system.
The business environment of the International Trade Center is a quantitative tool to measure and evaluate the development environment faced by all types of enterprises of all types within Shanghai.
First, the business environment is the sum of all external factors common to all types of enterprises.
Second, the business environment is a development environment and an important variable affecting the development of enterprises.
Third, business environment is a quantitative concept and a tool for measuring and assessing the development environment.
Fourth, the business environment is reflected in the form of indicators, and an accurate evaluation of the business environment is obtained by scoring the indicators.
Doing business is an institutional-level concept, and the business environment of the ITC is the sum of various institutional arrangements related to international trade activities. Cross-country empirical studies have demonstrated that institutions are critical to economic development and that stronger property rights protection with fewer policy distortions will make a country richer than others. In the World Bank study, Doing Business is broken down into eleven institutional indicators for starting a business, applying for a building permit, hiring employees, registering property rights, accessing credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading in and out of the country, contract enforcement, closing a business, and accessing electricity supply. It can be seen that the essence of optimizing the business environment is the reform and innovation of the institutional arrangement for doing business.
2 Problems and shortcomings of Shanghai’s business environment
2.1 Hidden obstacles in administrative approval and lack of detail control in post-event supervision
There are still some problems in the actual operation of Shanghai’s administrative approval system, mainly at the operational level and the administrative end. There are invisible obstacles in administrative approval, the efficiency of environmental assessment, safety assessment, social assessment and other preapproval is low, the grassroots clerical staff in the knowledge structure, policy level, work experience and other aspects do not match with the reform of the government supervision of the intermediate and post-event-oriented. The openness and transparency of administrative approval needs to be strengthened, and the application materials, waiting time limit, operation process, and informing commitment of administrative approval are still not specific and clear.
The development of district and county functionaries in e-government construction is relatively lagging behind, the prior notification of administrative approval content fails to achieve Internet operation, and enterprises are still trapped by information barriers when handling administrative approval in districts and counties. The lack of information sharing mechanism among district and county functional departments in handling administrative approval increases the time cost of enterprises. The internal regulations of window units are contrary to laws, regulations and the spirit of higher-level policies and documents, and fail to keep up with the times, which affects the “last mile” of administrative approval reform.
2.2 SMEs overly rely on government subsidies and lack market-oriented industrial policies
In terms of industrial policy, Shanghai SMEs rely excessively on government subsidies, without forming a market-oriented SME cultivation and growth mechanism. In the distribution of government subsidies, there is an imbalance between industries, sectors and regions, and there is a lack of special subsidies and guidance and incentive policies that are compatible with the development orientation of the international trade center.
The lack of a strong information dissemination channel for the application and distribution of government subsidies makes some non-public SMEs effectively excluded from the beneficiary group of subsidy projects. Various informal intermediaries are active between SMEs and government departments, providing advisory services and charging fees for enterprises to obtain subsidy funds, which reduces the efficiency of the use of financial funds. In addition, the lack of scientific and effective performance evaluation mechanism for various subsidy projects, project funds in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, demonstration project construction and other aspects of the leading role is weak.
2.3 Inter-regional tax system reform is not coordinated, and the sharing of tax benefits between levels is unreasonable
In the process of business reform, the reform of inter-regional taxation system has become uncoordinated. There are tax barriers between Shanghai and the neighboring regions of Yangtze River Delta in the sale and purchase of raw materials and semi-finished products, and the VAT invoices issued by Shanghai service industry enterprises cannot be deducted in the neighboring regions, which increases the operating costs of enterprises.
In the export tax rebate and other tax incentives, the share design among government levels is unreasonable, and the share of districts and counties is too large, which aggravates the mismatch between the financial resources and responsibilities of districts and counties. In terms of tax collection and management reform, after the abolition of tax administrators, enterprises feel that the service quality of taxation departments has decreased, the information channel between government and enterprises has been blocked, and the time cost of tax declaration for enterprises has increased. In terms of detailed control, Shanghai local taxation department still needs to make a breakthrough, and the lack of unification of tax registration number and taxpayer identification number affects the efficiency of enterprises in filing tax returns. After the reform of “three certificates in one”, there is still the phenomenon that the “single number” and taxpayer identification number are separated after the merger.
2.4 Tight land for construction in mega cities and mismatch of resources in the process of industrial import
With the change of economic structure and industrial upgrading, all districts and counties in Shanghai are generally in a tight situation of construction land, and manufacturing industries and productive service industries start to move to distant suburbs. In the process of industrial importation and transformation, there is a blind pursuit of high standards and high technology in the districts and counties, and a lack of differentiated industrial positioning. The development of productive service industries is subject to strong land constraints, and the construction of basic functional areas such as logistics parks is often excluded from the development planning of districts and counties. With the accelerating urbanization process, the industrial importation in the distant suburbs has entered a new stage of development.
At present, there is a mismatch between the imported population and the imported industries in the distant suburbs. The district and county levels want to improve the industrial capacity, while the structure of the imported population is complicated, with the higher quality part lacking the willingness to be employed in the distant suburbs and the lower quality part not being able to effectively support the district and county’s industrial upgrading goals.
2.5 High labor cost of enterprises and structural talent shortage restrict industrial transformation and upgrading
Influenced by the macroeconomic situation and industrial transfer trend, the labor cost of Shanghai enterprises is high, and the social security burden of SMEs is heavy. The high cost of living in the mega-city has, to a certain extent, curbed the inflow of high-quality talents and restricted the development of high-end industrial models such as headquarters economy. In the introduction of high-end talents, the city’s “Thousand Talents Program” and “Green Channel” mechanisms have played a certain role, but the household registration system needs to be improved in the policy of adding points for settlement, and it is more difficult to add points for economic and legal talents, which is not conducive to the development of foreign trade, finance, business The development of modern service industry such as foreign trade, finance, consulting, etc. There are still some problems in the interface between the household registration system and the residence permit system, and the grassroots departments and clerks have too much discretion in handling the “residence to household” process, which weakens the willingness of middle and high-end talents to settle. In addition, from the perspective of the construction target of the International Trade Center, there is an obvious structural shortage of talents in the city at this stage, with a lack of skilled workers, low salaries and unreasonable assessment mechanisms, which cannot meet the development needs of manufacturing enterprises.
2.6 Business credit system is not sound, and the governance system can hardly meet the development of the four new economies
In recent years, Shanghai has made positive progress in the construction of social credit system, especially the construction and opening of the city’s public credit information service platform, which has laid a solid foundation for the public sharing of government public credit information. However, in comparison, the infrastructure of Shanghai’s business integrity system is relatively weak, and the problem of “siloing” and “fragmentation” of market credit information is particularly serious, and the government’s public credit information is basically separated from market credit information.
Therefore, on the one hand, the information support provided for the government department’s supervision is single and lagging behind; on the other hand, it is difficult for market players, especially platform enterprises, to use the government public credit information in their own management in a timely and accurate manner, and the public lacks a fast and convenient channel to obtain comprehensive credit evaluation information about market players.
3 Policy Suggestions for Optimizing Business Environment in Shanghai
3.1 Optimize the evaluation mechanism of government subsidized projects and establish a business development guidance fund
Standardize the enterprise subsidy projects of municipal departments and district and county governments, develop scientific and effective performance evaluation mechanisms for subsidy projects, and engage third parties to participate in performance evaluation. For the overall poor performance of the subsidy project, adjust its use direction and operating mechanism. To gradually reduce the dependence of SMEs on government subsidies, improve the marketability of subsidy projects, and try to provide advice from banks, insurance, trusts and other professional institutions to determine the winning enterprises of subsidy projects.
Establish a business development guidance fund, with the Municipal Commission of Commerce responsible for the formation and management of the fund, in the form of a mother fund with several sub-funds, operated by state-owned or private professional investment institutions, allowing social capital to obtain investment returns on a priority basis, in order to encourage active participation of social capital and improve the leverage ratio of financial funds.
3.2 Strengthen the supervision in and after the event, and explore the differentiated development of government departments’ supervisory responsibilities
Strengthen the supervision in and afterwards, optimize the supervision process, enrich the supervision means, and distinguish the difference of responsibilities of functional departments with different attributes in supervision. Gradually weaken the responsibilities of the Economic and Information Commission, the Commerce Commission, the Science and Technology Commission, the Development and Reform Commission and other departments in the post-event supervision, so that these departments focus on policy formulation and market access, clarify the scope of authority and responsibility of market supervision departments and the power operation process, eliminate the “blind spots” and “dead ends” in the regulatory process The “blind spots” and “dead ends” in the regulatory process are eliminated.
3.3 Improve the open and transparent market access system, focusing on the hidden obstacles in administrative approval
In accordance with internationally accepted standards, establish an open and transparent market access system. Based on the experience of Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, within the existing legal framework and taking into account the actual situation of districts and counties, promote the negative list in other districts and counties in Shanghai, and try to extend the scope of the subjects of the negative list to all non-publicly owned enterprises.
Centralize the governance of predecessor administrative approval, publish the list and process of predecessor administrative approval, establish information sharing mechanism between predecessor approval units and comprehensive approval units, and improve the efficiency of administrative approval. Clean up and standardize the internal regulations of window units.
3.4 Deepen the reform of business integrity system and make efforts to break the information barrier between government and market
Accelerate the construction of business integrity public service platform. Insist on market-oriented and demand-oriented, break the barriers between government public credit information and market credit information and establish interactive sharing mechanism, take the city public credit information service platform as the basis, support the collection and sharing of public credit information and market credit information of government departments, platform enterprises, third-party professional institutions and social organizations, focus on market application, and gradually form a comprehensive credit information platform covering government departments, market-oriented platforms and third-party professional institutions. We will gradually form a comprehensive network of credit information covering government departments, market-based platforms and third-party professional institutions, and gradually establish a regional and comprehensive credit evaluation system covering online and offline enterprises.
3.5 Enrich and broaden the financing channels for SMEs and strengthen the role of the government in guarantee-type affairs
At present, financing for SMEs in Shanghai is still mainly through banks, and the proportion of financing from non-bank financial institutions and direct financing is low. Therefore, efforts should be made to enrich and broaden the financing channels for SMEs, and commercial banks should be encouraged and guided to formulate special credit plans and implementation details for SMEs.
Support districts and counties to directly issue SME credit subsidies to eligible commercial banks to increase the intensity of policy incentives. The municipal business committee and relevant departments in the district and county should make full use of their subordinate service platforms to strengthen the government’s role in guarantee-type matters and, if necessary, set up government-controlled guarantee companies to support financing for SMEs in the region.
3.6 Reduce the human resource cost of enterprises and create a talent depression for entrepreneurship and innovation
The high human resource cost and cost of living in mega cities have become one of the bottlenecks limiting the sustainable development of SMEs in Shanghai. Improve the policy of extra points for settlement for fresh students, focusing on adjusting the extra points policy for students in economics and management, law, and literature and history, and treating the publication of academic papers during school as the same as scientific and technological patents.
Strengthen the construction of various types of protected housing and reduce the cost of living. Establish a linkage mechanism between housing construction planning and talent introduction programs, and support districts and counties to establish special housing security programs for high-level and highly skilled talents.
3.7 Explore a new policy support system in response to the development trend of the “four new economies
Take the pilot and promotion of the negative list as a breakthrough, actively explore a new policy support system in line with the development rules of the “four new economies”, and establish a special risk investment fund for the “four new economies” by the Municipal Commission of Commerce and the relevant departments of the districts and counties to identify and support, on the basis of market-oriented principles A number of new enterprises and new projects that may have a significant impact on the regional economic transformation.
Establishing a “four new economies” parent project bank, planning, reserving and selecting a number of incubator projects in line with the direction of Shanghai’s industrial restructuring to ensure the sustainable development of the “four new economies”. For the traditional commercial projects that are seriously impacted by e-commerce, we should encourage their online and offline integration and gradually promote the virtualization of traditional commerce.