Opening up of service sector brings new energy to Beijing’s economy

By expanding supply-side structural reform in the service sector, Beijing has injected new energy into its economy since it became the first city in China to carry out the pilot program of opening up the service industry in May 2015. During the past four years, the city opened China’s first aircraft maintenance joint-venture and the first foreign-invested securities company. In addition, international rating agencies such as Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have also established new legal entities in the Chinese capital.

Beijing streamlined its administrative procedures of new business registration, enabling the applicants to go through all formalities at one service counter with one checklist, abandoning the old model that required foreign enterprises to go through business registration and filing at different administrative departments. A Germany-funded supply chain management company was one of the beneficiaries of the innovation. “The new model saved us a lot of time. After we submitted information to the commercial administrative department, the filing was completed on the second day,” said an employee of the company.

In addition, Beijing reduced unnecessary information that needsto be submitted by enterprises under the new model, slashing repetitive filing by 45 percent. An official with Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau introduced that now the new business registration model has been promoted nationwide. Meanwhile, Beijing has rolled out a dual-credit scheme to manage business operations. Under the scheme, companies with good credit will gain positive scores while those with bad credit will receive negative scores. By adopting both online and offline statistical comparisons and targeted monitoring for new investment, Beijing realized precise management of foreign companies.

According to third-party assessment, Beijing has created 68 pioneering and most effective measures regarding openness expansion, trade facilitation, and environment building of the service sector. These experiences were later promoted in other regions of the country. Driven by the pilot program, Beijing’s service sector played a bigger role in boosting the city’s general economy. In 2018, the added value of the sector accounted for 81 percent of the city’s GDP, 3.1 percentage points higher than that in 2014 before the pilot program was carried out.

In addition, the pilot program further energized the market. 640,200 enterprises were established since the start of the program, an increase of 43.3 percent. 95.2 percent of these companies were in the service industry. In January this year, the State Council agreed to advance the comprehensive pilot program for more openness of Beijing’s service industry, further expanding foreign investment access to the sector. It also rolled out 14 measures in such areas as information, scientific research and technology services, finance, commerce, culture and entertainment, and health and social work.

“Beijing’s pilot program of opening up targets at individual industries, and continuously expands the openness of different industries. Such approach is more effective than building industrial parks, as it helps build a relatively consistent market environment,” said Cui Weijie, director of Institute of Industry Development and Strategy under the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce.

By He Yong

(People’s Daily)