Li: Boosting government efficiency to increase investment

Efforts to streamline government administration, transform government functions and boost efficiency will be redoubled to spur economic vitality and attract overseas investment, Premier Li Keqiang said on May 9 in Beijing.

The drive is aimed at meeting the requirements for another round of opening-up and at improving China's global competitiveness, Li told a national teleconference.

"We used to rely on our demographic dividend, but today such a dividend is diminishing," he said.

The premier said streamlining administration is also a step toward further opening-up and nurturing new competence in a global context.

At the teleconference, officials from Shanghai shared their experiences in these efforts. The city's free trade zone has introduced a much-reduced negative list for foreign investment, which has cut special administrative measures by more than one-third.

The city government has also explored new business registration policies, cutting the company registration time from 29 days to less than four.

In the free trade zone, more than 100 new measures have been implemented and international trade has its own channel. The time taken for customs clearance procedures has also been cut by 40 percent.

Li said these measures have made a difference, and China's business environment has greatly improved in recent years, as market access has been further opened up.

According to the World Bank, China has risen six places in a year to 84th spot out of 189 economies in terms of easy of doing business.

But its conventional advantages in the global economy have started to wane in recent years. Both foreign trade growth and overseas investment have declined, due in part to weakening international demand and China's business environment.

Last month, China's foreign trade stood at 1.95 trillion yuan ($300 billion; 263 billion euros), a drop of 0.3 percent year-on-year, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Chen Fengying, a global economy researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, says China is facing insufficient external demand for goods and growing internal demand for better salaries and welfare.

Some processing manufacturing has moved to South and Southeast Asia to reduce labor costs, but China has a sounder legal system and can improve its "software" by streamlining administrative processes, Chen says.

Contact the writers through huyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 05/13/2016 page15)