Siming and Huli districts in Xiamen, Fujian province, are shining examples of how to improve the business environment, local officials said.

In recent years, Siming district has been pushing forward reforms to streamline administration and delegate power, enhance regulation, and upgrade services.

It has focused on 15 high-frequency administrative items, setting up an intelligent administrative service model which includes remote video assistance, automatic information filling, and electronic documents reuse.

As a result, the average number of items required for each application has been reduced from 51 to four; the intelligent approval efficiency has doubled; and about 91 percent of the applications have been approved after the first review.

A local resident surnamed Li said she completed the company's registration through video link with staff members from the administrative service center of Siming district.

"While it was my first time to deal with the matter, the process was smooth and efficient thanks to their guidance," Li said.

So far, the service model has been promoted and applied in the district's healthcare and banking sectors.

In November 2021, the Siming demonstration zone of the Maritime Silk Road Central Legal District officially started operations.

The zone currently has 60 intellectual property and legal affair institutions, laying a sound foundation for its goal of building an international legal service center, local officials said.

Focusing on enterprises' problems, the district often invites legal experts to hold workshops on laws and regulations, IP protection, and policy analysis.

Siming district people's procuratorate, in collaboration with six district-level market regulation bureaus and Xiamen's IP development and protection center, has established the IP collaborative protection center to better serve local companies.

In addition, the district has released a slew of favorable policies to attract talents, and it has increased financial support for enterprises by creating multiple financial assistance programs and lowering the threshold for application.

From January to September, Siming provided financial aid totaling 1.57 billion yuan ($219.56 million), benefiting more than 1,700 enterprises.

Huli district has also made sustained efforts to recruit and encourage talents. So far, 129 employees from the district have been awarded the title "key industry talent", earning prizes of nearly 53 million yuan.

Huli's administration for market regulation conducts online livestreams regularly, providing detailed guidance on problems of public concerns such as market entity registration and the conversion procedure from individual businesses to enterprises.

In April, a special working group was formed to offer enterprises one-to-one administrative services related to 202 administrative items.

Later in May, the local government upgraded the services and released an online version integrating a chatbot and real-person services through the official WeChat account of the Huli district administrative service center.

The services now include 530 items, including social livelihood, business management, and engineering construction, among other things.

Data showed that the district added 46,971 market entities during the first three quarters, with a combined registered capital of 90.59 billion yuan.

A view of Xiamen's cross-Strait finance center. HUANG RONG/FOR CHINA DAILY