Guangdong constantly consolidates institutional support for business environment

With the help of a mobile app, it took Lee, an entrepreneur from Hong Kong, less than half an hour rather than the month-plus it used to take to get a business license for his tomato planting company in Jiangmen, South China's Guangdong province.

The app that allows business owners to submit their applications for business licenses demonstrates the province's consistent efforts to streamline its administrative approval services in recent years. Now, the most common administrative approval matters can all be handled online in Guangdong.

Since 2019, the province has promulgated or revised a number of local regulations covering areas like small and medium-sized enterprises, foreign investment and the overall business environment to stimulate market vitality.

In Qianhai, Shenzhen, more than 110 outcomes, including regulations and the establishment of a law firm jointly founded by partners from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, an international arbitration center and an intellectual property tribunal, have been achieved in the process of building a law-based business environment in the area.

To better resolve commercial disputes related to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, Qianhai established a mechanism for the application of extraterritorial laws in trials of such cases.

As a landmark event exemplifying how Shenzhen exercises its special legislative power, the city's regulation on personal bankruptcy, the first of its kind in China, went into force on March 1. The regulation provides a way for indebted good-faith individuals to re-engage in economic activities.

In the Nansha Area of the China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, a mechanism featuring coordination between administrative reconsideration and mediation has been established to provide an alternative solution to administrative disputes.