Jiangsu endeavors to stimulate growth

East China's Jiangsu province has taken measures to effectively lower overall costs of the real economy, according to provincial officials.

Kong Xiangping, deputy director of Jiangsu Provincial Price Bureau, said business costs have been reduced by a total of 35 billion yuan ($5.5 billion) in the province over the past two years.

In fact, business costs totaling 25 billion yuan were reduced in 2017 alone, Kong said.

"More than 80 administrative charges and 50 service fees imposed on enterprises have been canceled or lowered since 2016."

He said that as of now, only 48 categories of administration charges and 19 categories of service fees regulated by the government still exist in Jiangsu, which is the country's second-largest province in terms of its economy, with a GDP surpassing 8.5 trillion yuan in 2017.

While many provinces have lowered their growth targets this year, Jiangsu, which saw 7.2 percent GDP growth last year, has once again set its target at higher than 7 percent for 2018.

Rui Jincheng, director of the price bureau's general office, said that to promote real economy development, the provincial authorities have introduced many measures to lighten the burden on businesses, including reducing energy, logistics and electricity costs.

"Energy costs totaling 17.7 billion yuan have been reduced for enterprises since 2016," he said.

Nanjing High Accurate Drive Equipment Manufacturing Group, one of the world's leading manufacturers of wind power and gear equipment, saved more than 6.5 million yuan in 2017 due to electricity cost reduction.

Hu Hongming, the group's director of equipment department, said electricity fees accounted for 1.5 to 1.8 percent of the group's total costs.

"We used 240 million kwh of electricity in 2017. The group saved electricity fees of 2.3 million yuan in six months after the price bureau lowered the electricity fees in July 2017," Hu said. "The bureau also helped us to purchase directly from power plants, which saved us 4.21 million yuan."

Kong from the price bureau said compared with reducing overall costs, simply clarifying the detailed list of costs imposed on enterprises is more important.

"We should let the enterprises know what kinds of fees and taxes they shouldn't pay," Kong said. "We'll have further measures to promote the enterprises' awareness to save costs."

However, Jiang Ting, an official with the bureau, said there is not much room to further help reduce costs at the provincial level.

"We had 374 items of administration charges in 2008 that accounted for 25.5 percent of the total revenue," Jiang said. "But in 2017, there were only 48 such items, which accounted for less than 7 percent of the revenue."

"Among the 42 items of administration charges that remain this year, only 10 are charged by the province while the rest are by the central government," she added.