On June 28, the Information Office of Liaoning Provincial People’s Government held the seventh press conference of a thematic series titled “Building a First-Class Business Environment”. The conference provided the main measures, progress and achievements, highlights, and next steps of Shenyang and Dalian this year to foster a market-oriented, rule-of-law business environment in keeping with international standards.

Up to now, Shenyang has innovated and reformed its system concerning business environment for six rounds. As of the end of May this year, there were over 1.18 million market entities in the city. Notably, from January to May, the number of newly registered ones has reached 102,500, up 47.33% year on year, the highest level for the same period in the past three years. In addition, newly established foreign-invested enterprises in the city have increased by 35.4%, and the actual utilization of foreign investment has totaled 1.1 billion US dollars. Shenyang had been recognized as a model city, the only one in Northeast China, in regulating business environment for two consecutive years, namely 2020 and 2021. And in 2022, it was selected on the list of Innovative Cities for Business Environment.

Shenyang has conducted the reform of “submitting materials for only once”, which has led to a reduction of 253 items, accounting for 19.8% of all items. 142 procedures have been optimized, making up 11.1%. 1,611 declarations have been canceled, which amounted for 23.3%. 603 links have been streamlined, making up 17.1%, and 348 unnecessary in-person submitting have been reduced, making up 27.2%.

Dalian has promoted the “nearby service” initiative, with 1726 convenient service stations established throughout the city, facilitating the handling of 1.46 million various matters. Furthermore, Dalian has achieved the goal of “city-wide access” for 300 service items, facilitating intercity administrative services among the cities around the Bohai Sea region and achieving the intercity handling for 40 items among the six coastal cities.

Meanwhile, Dalian has promoted “one-time handling” for complex matters, which involves the overall optimization of application requirements, declaration methods, and processing modes for a given matter. 211 matters have been included in the “one matter, one time handling” system, with a total of 2860 cases processed. On average, the handling steps have been reduced by 42.2%, processing time by 74.5%, required materials by 51.8%, and trips made by applicants by 39.1%. This initiative was recognized as a “Best Practice Case for Party-Government Informatization” at the national level. Dalian has also developed local standards for the “one matter, one time handling” approach, becoming the first in Liaoning Province to establish such standards in the relevant field.