A news conference was held in Zhuhai on July 13 to provide a briefing on the achievements that the city in South China has made in offering comprehensive and high-quality services for its businesses.

Zhuhai has implemented an enhanced integrated government services platform at the city, district, town (street), and village (community) levels - strengthening its capabilities for centralized identity authentications, online logistics, online payments, electronic licensing, and electronic seals. 

Officials answer questions at the July 13 news conference. [Photo by Chen Jiazhe / WeChat account: zhuhaifabu]

The integrated government services platform in Zhuhai had launched 1,575 service items as of June 2023, with 1,123 specially catering to local businesses.

In addition, a total of 10,240 government service items for applications and public services were released, with 99.87 percent of the items at the city and district levels capable of being handled in one visit or less, while 94.24 percent achieve zero on-site visits.

Consequently, Zhuhai continues to deepen the reform of its business system by consolidating 40 approvals across six categories for opening a business related to multi-format operations such as food and medicine - enabling one-time applications, parallel reviews, and time-limited handling.

The city has also coordinated an electronic signature service, resulting in a fully paperless process. By the end of June 2023, the reform of the approval services for enterprises had processed 9,955 affairs with a significant proportion of 73.92 percent involving joint processing of multiple businesses, while achieving "one-window access" for two or more physical items in 67.84 percent of cases.

In May 2022, Zhuhai took the lead in the province in implementing several measures to optimize the examination and approval of construction projects. After the reform, the time limit for the entire process of industrial project approvals in the city was compressed to less than 13 working days. 

Projects that are set to start construction right after land acquisition now only require two working days to obtain construction permits and other documents, making it the shortest processing time in the province.

The satisfaction level of business entities in Zhuhai is reported to be among the top in the province.

What’s more, the city has also delayed the payments of urban infrastructure support fees through commitments - and issued 342 construction project planning permits, totaling 1.56 billion yuan ($218.17 million) - which has reduced the burden on enterprises.

Furthermore, Zhuhai is moving to develop its 12345 Hotline into a main channel for various departments to serve the real economy and manufacturing industry, while also serving as a key platform for connecting with enterprises and boosting the level of "one-stop" services with them.

Businesses can file complaints to the hotlines and platforms such as Yueshenxin and Yueshangtong, as well as the 12345 enterprise hotline and the official WeChat account for 12345. 

These channels efficiently collect and assign the difficulties and problems faced by business entities in their production and operation processes, providing one-stop, intelligent, and timely response services around the clock. Since the start of the year, the 12345 Hotline has received 34,972 inquiries from business entities, with a direct response rate of 97.31 percent.

After receiving work orders, various departments now undertake to respond within one hour during the working day, contacting callers and resolving consulting-type work orders within two working days, and addressing other types of work orders such as complaints and reports within four working days. 

The average processing time for business requests this year is currently 2.96 days. Additionally, the 12345 hotline has established a query tracking team, conducting 100 percent manual follow-up visits for all business queries handled on the Yueshenxin platform. 

Since the start of 2023, the satisfaction rate for handling business requests has reached a remarkable 98.48 percent.