Chapter I General Provisions
Article 1 For purposes of continuously optimizing Doing Business environment, stimulating the vitality of market participants, maintaining the legitimate rights and interests of market participants, promoting high-quality economic development, enhancing the modernization of government governance systems and capabilities, and building Shanghai into an outstanding global city and a socialist modern international metropolis with world influence, these Regulations are formulated in light of the reality of this Municipality, and in accordance with the Regulations on Optimizing Doing Business Environment and other laws and administrative regulations.,Article 2 These Regulations apply to work related to optimizing Doing Business environment within the administrative area of this Municipality.Doing Business environment as mentioned in these Regulations refers to the institutional mechanism factors and conditions involved in the market economic activities of enterprises and other market participants.Article 3 The business environment shall be optimized with adherence to the principles of marketization, the rule of law and internationalization, by taking the needs of market participants as the evaluation criteria and the transformation of government functions as the core, taking “Integrated Online Platform” as the starting point to comprehensively “deepen the reform of streamlining administration, delegating powers and optimizing services”. This Municipality shall practice the service concept of “being responsive to requests without making any unnecessary intervention”, benchmark against the highest standard and level, and create an international first-class Doing Business environment with facilitation of trade and investment, high administrative efficiency, standardized government services, and enhanced legal system so as to create a stable, fair, transparent and predictable development environment for the investment and business development of all kinds of market participants.Article 4 The municipal and district people’s governments shall strengthen the organization and leadership of optimizing Doing Business environment, and establish and improve the overall working mechanism for optimizing Doing Business environment, improve the joint meeting mechanism to serve the enterprises and strengthen the overall planning of the service for enterprises in the corresponding administrative area in accordance with the principles and requirements for optimizing Doing Business environment. The main person in charge of the government is the first person responsible for optimizing Doing Business environment.The development and reform departments at municipal and district levels are the competent departments for optimizing Doing Business environment within their administrative areas, and are responsible for guiding, organizing, and coordinating the daily work of optimizing Doing Business environment.The municipal departments of economyand informatization, commerce, government services, market regulation, housing and urban-rural development, planning resources, judicial administration, local finance, intellectual property rights and other departments shall fulfill its duties in optimizing Doing Business environment.Article 5 The municipal and district people’s governments and their relevant departments shall fully utilize the existing legal system and national policy resources, explore specific and feasible new experience and methods for optimizing Doing Business environment, and reproduce and promote the effective reform measures.China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, Lin-gang Special Area, Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone, Hongqiao Business District and other areas shall play a leading role in optimizing Doing Business environment, piloting various reform measures conducive to optimizing Doing Business environment.Article 6 This Municipality shall strengthen communication and cooperation with relevant provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, focus on improving Doing Business environment in the demonstration area in the Yangtze River Delta on ecologically friendly development, promote the establishment of unified market access and supervision rules, and strive to form a unified open market with the free flow of various factors of production and enhance the overall Doing Business environment in the Yangtze River Delta region.
Article 7 The municipal and district people’s governments shall establish an incentive mechanism for optimizing Doing Business environment, and shall commend and reward units and individuals that have made outstanding achievements in optimizing Doing Business environment in accordance with the relevant rules.
All districts and departments can actively explore specific measures to optimize Doing Business environment within the framework of the rule of law and in relation to their actual situations. The relevant entities and individuals who make mistakes or deviate in their exploratory work, but make and implement decisions in accordance with the relevant provisions of the State and this Municipality in a diligent and responsible attitude, without making any private gains, then no negative evaluation shall be made upon such entities and individuals, and they may be exempted from or relieved of their liabilitiesaccording to the law.Article 8 As required by Doing Business environment evaluation system, this Municipality promotes the reform of optimizing Doing Business environment which is oriented towards the satisfaction of market participants and the public, and give play to the leading, supervising and urging role of Doing Business environment evaluation in optimizing Doing Business environment.
All districts and departments shall timely adjust and improve the policy measures for optimizing Doing Business environment based on the results of Doing Business environment evaluation.
Chapter II Market Environment
Article 9 This Municipality shall give full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, build a service system covering the entire life cycle of enterprises, and continue to optimize Doing Business environment in terms of enterprise start-up, financing and credit, dispute resolution, and business withdrawal.Article 10 All kinds of market participants can, equally and according to the law, enter fields which are outside of the negative list for national market access. Fields outside the negative list of national foreign investment access shall be managed in accordance with the principle of treating domestic investments and foreign investments equally.This Municipality shall formulate industry guidance policies and make them public to society in accordance with the relevant regulations on urban function positioning, development planning, environmental protection and safety, and the established procedures.Article 11 This Municipality shall benchmark against international high-standard investment and trade rules to promote trade facilitation, encourage and promote foreign investment. This Municipality shall carry out the experimental foreign investment policies and measures in China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and Lin-gang Special Area to expand the opening up of the country to the outside world in accordance with the national deployment.All types of enterprises are encouraged to set up headquarters and R&D centers in this Municipality. International organizations that are closely related to the construction of Shanghai’s international economic, financial, shipping, trade and science and technology innovation centers are encouraged to register in this Municipality, and this Municipality supports the establishment of international organizations related to this Municipality’s key strategic emerging industry.Article 12 This Municipality shall, according to the law, protect the decision-making power in operation, the property rights and other legitimate rights and interests of market participants, and protect the personal safety and property securityof enterprise operators.No entity or individual may intervene in matters such as pricing, internal governance, and business model that should be independently decided by market participants in accordance with the law. It is prohibited to require market participants to provide any form of apportionment. It is prohibited to illegally implement administrative coercion or infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of market participants and their operators.Except as otherwise provided by laws and regulations, market participants are entitled to decide independently whether to join or withdraw from social organizations such as industry associations and chambers of commerce.Article 13 Development support policies of the State and this Municipality shall equally apply to all kinds of market participants according to the law. All kinds of market participants are entitled to the equal use of capital, technology, human resources, land use rights and other natural resources and other production factors and public service resources.The municipal and district people’s governments and their departments shall treat all kinds of market participants equally and shall not formulate or implement discriminatory policy measures.Tendering and bidding and government procurement shall be open, transparent, fair and just, and all kinds market participants shall be treated equally according to the law, and shall not be subject to any unreasonable conditions or any restriction or exclusion by way of potential bidder or vendor.This Municipality shall improve the management system of public resource trading, establish and improve a public resource trading platform, optimize the transaction service process, and publicly disclose information on public resource trading rules, procedures, results, supervision ,credit and other related matter.Article 14 This Municipality shall establish and improve a fair competition coordination mechanism, strengthen law enforcement, prevent and prohibit acts of market monopoly and abuse of administrative power to exclude and restrict competition in market economic activities, and unfair competition, so as to create a fair market environment for competition.Article 15 This Municipality shall create a healthy development environment for small and medium-sized enterprises, guarantee their fair participation in market competition, and support their entrepreneurship and innovation.The municipal and district people’s governments shall formulate special policies in fiscal support, fees reduction and exemption, financial support, public services, etc., and arrange special funds for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the financial budget at the same level of government in order to support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.Article 16 This Municipality shall enhance the protection on minority investors, improve the protection mechanism on the rights and interests of minority investors, safeguard the rights to information, voting, dividends and supervision of minority investors, and give play to the function role of minority investor service agencies in equity holding, right exercising, dispute mediation, and litigation resolving, and improve the convenience of minority investors in regard to safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests.Article 17 This Municipality shall include all enterprise-related business licensing items in the reform scope of “Separating Permits from the Business License” and adopt methods as directly abolishing examination and approval, changing examination and approval to record-filing, implementing notification and commitment and optimizing examination and approval services to promote such reform. Except for specific fields as prescribedin laws and administrative regulations, no enterprise-related business licensing items shall be used as preconditions for enterprise registration.This Municipality supports the exploration of the reform of “One Permit for One Industry” approval model, integrating multiple permits involved in one industry access into a comprehensive industry permit.The department of market regulation shall clearly inform the enterprise of the licensing items that need to be handled according to the business scope self-declared by the enterprise, and synchronously inform the relevant competent department of the information of the enterprise applying for the license. The relevant competent department shall timely handle the enterprise-related business licensing items in accordance with the application of the enterprise, and shall promptly report the results to the market regulation department.Article 18 For legally established government funds, enterprise-related deposits and enterprise-related administrative and institutional fees, and operating service fees priced by the government, catalog list management shall be implemented, and no fees or deposits which are outside of the catalog list shall be implemented. The municipal finance department and the municipal development and reform department shall compile such catalog list and make it public.This Municipality shall promote the use of letters of guarantee from financial institutions and guarantee insurances instead of cash payment of enterprise-related deposits. The municipal development and reform department, the municipal housing and urban-rural development department and other relevant competent departments shall clarify specific requirements and guidelines.Article 19 This Municipality shall cultivate and develop various types of industry associations and chambers of commerce, and shall regulate and supervise the charging, comparison-based evaluation, certification and other conduct of industry associations and chambers of commerce pursuant to the law.
Industry associations and chambers of commerce shall strengthen internal governance and capacity building, reflect industry demands in a timely manner, organize the formulation and implementation of group standards, strengthen industrial self-discipline, and provide market participants with information consulting, publicity and training, market expansion, rights and interests protection, disputesresolution and other services.Article 20 The people’s governments at all levels and their relevant departments in this Municipality shall fulfill the policy commitments which they have made to market participants according to the law and all kinds of contracts entered into with market participants according to the law, and shall not default on or break contracts on the grounds of adjustment of administrative division, change of government, institutional or functional adjustments, replacement of relevant responsible persons, etc. Where policy commitments or contractual provisions need to be changed due to the needs of national interests or social and public interests, such change shall be carried out in accordance with statutory authority and procedures, and losses suffered by market participants as a result shall be compensated according to the law.If the government alters or withdraws the administrative permitsthat has taken effect or adopts expropriation or other measures in accordance with the conditions and procedures prescribedby law, the market participants shall be compensated pursuant to the law.Article 21 The people’s governments at all levels, and their relevant departments and institutions in this Municipality shall not default on or be in arrears of the payment of goods, projects, services and other items to market participants, and shall not extend any payment period in disguise beyond the agreed payment mechanism.This Municipality shall explore the establishment of a restrictive and disciplinary mechanism for default payment behaviors, prevent and correct the arrears in market participants’ accounts through budget management, performance appraisal, audit supervision and other measures.Article 22 This Municipality shall strengthen the intellectual property rights protection, rationalize the comprehensive management and enforcement system of intellectual property rights and strengthen the enforcement cooperation mechanism for cross-regional intellectual property laws.This Municipality shall implement a punitive compensation system against infringement of intellectual property rights, promote the establishment of a mechanism of rapid and collaborative protectionon intellectual property rights, improve the cohesive mechanism in between administrative and judicial protection, explore the public interest litigation in intellectual property rights, enhance the aid mechanism in safeguarding intellectual property rights, and provide the infringement early warning, legal services and judicial relief for intellectual property protections.This Municipality shall improve diversified mechanisms for the settlement of intellectual property disputes, give full play to the active role of industry associations and mediation, arbitration, intellectual property services and other institutions in resolving intellectual property disputes.
