Central China’s Hubei province facilitates market access for enterprises

In July, the market regulation department in central China’s Hubei province, together with five other institutions in the province, issued a notice specifying that the four government affairs regarding the establishment of enterprises, specifically establishment registration, official seal engraving and making, invoice application and social security registration, would be compressed into two procedures, namely application (which only requires one application form) and feedback (with all materials delivered to the applicants through one service window) starting from Aug. 1.

Meanwhile, the two procedures would be completed within one working day, with no charges at all, according to the notice.

So far, Hubei province has basically achieved the goal of going through the procedures related to the establishment of enterprises at all levels within one working day.

By the end of October, the province had helped cut fees of over 14.77 million yuan ($2.25 million) for enterprises while giving out free official seals to companies.

Recently, Jiang Sha, who came to Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, to start a business, was attracted by a science and technology project about environmental protection and was also satisfied with the consultations with the project owner.

However, Jiang was asked to provide the paperwork, including her business license, within one week for their cooperation, which caused quite a problem.

“This is the first time that I have started a business and I need to prepare a lot of materials and go through a complicated process to apply for a license,” she said, who thought that there was no way that she could manage it in one week.

Jiang had no choice but to take her chances at the government affairs service center in Qingshan district, Wuhan.

To her surprise, the application process was particularly fast.

In the service area for the establishment of companies, the staff workers taught her to fill in relevant information online. Her application was reviewed and approved in less than an hour.

The staff workers also promised to mail the business license and three newly carved official seals to her house free of charge.

Two days later, Jiang took the company’s full set of “ID” and successfully won the project.

“I didn’t think that I could make it,” Jiang said, who was surprised that she could receive the business license and official seals in such a short period of time. The entrepreneur felt relieved with the newly-signed contracts.

One of the major tasks for Hubei province, which was once hit hard by the epidemic, is to help market players survive, stay and grow.

To this end, Hubei has successively introduced a series of measures this year, in a bid to further improve the business environment and stimulate market vitality.

As the institutional transaction costs and approval duration have been reduced and approval efficiency has been improved, market entities are becoming more and more confident in Hubei province.

As of the end of October, the province had about 1.43 million business entities, an increase of 5.19 percent over the end of last year.

A total of 163,700 companies were newly registered from April to October, a year-on-year increase of 6.78 percent.