Qingdao’s Laoshan streamlines, boosts its business environment
Laoshan district in the city of Qingdao in eastern Shandong province has made great progress in optimizing its business environment, in the wake of the local government’s innovative launch of one-to-one personalized services for companies — as well as action taken to tackle and solve the problems of local enterprises, officials said.
They said the Laoshan government identified 328 problem areas and made 599 adjustments to cut red tape, to improve services for local enterprises.
Qingdao Yufang Robot Industry Co is one of the beneficiaries. With increasing numbers of orders this year, the company felt restricted by its limited production area and planned to move out of Laoshan.
After learning about the situation, Huang Yingsheng, deputy head of Laoshan district, and officials from the economic development bureau and scientific innovation committee visited the company to find out more about its difficulties and needs, arranging a larger 1,700-square-meter production site.
To create a more efficient environment for businesses, Laoshan district has repealed 13 of its nonvital inspection and approval procedures.
The local authorities have taken steps to speed up inspections and reduce paperwork for businesses pursuing projects. Currently only nine items are needed for examination, down from the previous 22, before approvals can be granted.
According to Lin Haixia, an official at the Laoshan market supervision bureau, companies in the district can now register their businesses in an office hall, seven regulatory offices and various banks, as the bureau cooperates with banks and has opened registration windows in their branches to make it easier for companies.
The business registration office hall has six zones, including a business processing zone, consultation and guidance zone and a network service zone.
“Our aim is to make it convenient and comfortable for companies, and serve Laoshan’s businesses efficiently,” Lin said.
Qi Yuguo, director of the market supervision bureau in Laoshan district, said intelligent robots are now used to serve locals, responding to voice or text questions.
The robots answer questions about a businesses’ registration, advertising, management, trademark applications, consumer rights protection and other related areas.
In addition, the district will put a WeChat remote identity authentication system into practice. Through face recognition and authentication technology, the identity information of the legal representatives and shareholders of companies can be checked and a business registration authorized remotely.
The system also avoids the risks of fraudulent use of identity information in obtaining industrial and commercial registrations.
Through the support and effort of the Laoshan government, the number of different types of businesses have increased dramatically in the district, reaching more than 2,500 businesses in the first quarter of this year, a 17.8 percent increase compared with the same period last year.
There are 569 companies in Laoshan district, each with registered capital greater than 100 million yuan ($15.9 million). The number of enterprises in the district ranks second of all districts in Qingdao.
With a registered capital of 630 million yuan, the new local unit of global furniture giant Ikea settled in Laoshan district in October.
Specialists at the market supervision bureau assisted the Swedish company to handle the registration materials, answered its questions and utilized an intelligent government-enterprise registration system to check Ikea’s registration documents online.
When Ikea staff submitted materials at the Laoshan district administrative hall, it only took 10 minutes to complete the entire process.
The company plans to invest 1.4 billion yuan in total there in Laoshan and is expected to generate 400 million yuan in annual sales from the local outlet, which is still under construction.
In March, executives from home appliances maker Haier’s intelligent manufacturing cloud platform, Cosmo, signed an agreement with Laoshan to lead the development of the district’s intelligent manufacturing sector.