Director of the Provincial Soft Environment Office,

Director of the Provincial Government Service and Digital Bureau

Song Gang(宋刚)

To speed up the construction of a proper business environment governed by law in the province, safeguard legitimate rights and interests of market subjects, energize market entities and promote economic and social development, the Provincial Soft Environment Office began to draft Jilin Province Regulation on Optimizing Business Environment in May 2018. In October 2018, the Regulation (Draft) was discussed and approved at the 20th Executive Meeting of the Provincial Government, and then formally promulgated and implemented on May 30, 2019 through the first and second trials of the Standing Committee of Provincial People's Congress. Jilin Province Regulation on Optimizing Business Environment (hereinafter referred to as the Regulation) is an important local regulation in the construction of business environment in Jilin Province.

In the process of drafting and revising the regulation, the main adherence to the directions and principles are as followed: First, highlight the declaration of legislation. Focus on carrying out the central government’s requirements to study and formulate relevant provisions especially the General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions when he inspected Jilin Province. Show the firm determination to carry out the work of optimizing business environment and support the development of private economy with appropriate legal thinking and measures. Second, highlight the leading role of legislation. Give full play to the leading role of legislation in economic and social development, connect with the latest reform measures of the state and our province, reflect the core spirit and reform tendency and push forward the reform of streamlining the government, delegating power and improving government services. Third, highlight the security of legislation. Adhere to targeting key problems without all-encompassing, identify the key problems which restricts the business environment of our province, improve the legislative top-level design of systems and mechanisms by focusing on key areas and links and make efforts to ensure the implementation of various reform measures. Fourth, highlight the fundamentals of legislation. The positioning of the Regulation is to optimize foundation of regulation on business environment. Some parts of the reforms of streamlining the government, delegating power, improving government services and optimizing business environment are still under exploration. Some principle provisions have been made in the legislation to reserve space for further deepening reform, improving regulation and assisting all-levels of government to formulate implementation measures. Fifth, highlight the supporting of legislation. The relevant provisions of optimizing business environment, which are already made clear by the state and our province, are no longer repeated. The unclear and changed provisions under the new situation are remade.

In general, there are 7 chapters, 73 clauses in the Regulation fully embodying the legislative idea of strengthening service guarantee and promoting high-quality development. For instance, in the aspect of creating a relaxed, orderly, honest and trustworthy market environment, propose slash taxes and fees of enterprises and set up two limited standards, construct a development environment with fair competition to create a sufficient market space for the development of market subjects, play the government’s role to solve intensive problems, which are reflected by market subjects to create a proper market environment. In the aspect of creating a convenient, efficient, open and transparent government environment, actively carry out the "one stop" reform of government services to push the operation of government power into a transparent, honest and efficient way, practice the reform of administrative license notification and commitment system to improve the efficiency of administrative approval, standardize the approval of enterprise investment projects, and strengthen the open, clear and integrated policies. In the aspect of creating a fair and just legal environment of the legislative process, require to formulate local provisions, government rules and normative documents concerning the economic activities of market subjects, listen to the opinions of market subjects in various forms, implement a fair competition review system, carry out recorded review and assessment clean-up for those who hinders fair competition and infringes the legitimate rights and interests of market subjects to provide system guarantee of optimizing business environment. In the law enforcement process, require to strictly implement the publicity system of administrative law enforcement, the whole process recorded system, and the legal review system of major administrative law enforcement decisions to promote the openness and fairness of administrative law enforcement, and to strictly regulate the law enforcement behaviors such as administrative license, administrative enforcement, administrative penalty, administrative decision and administrative inspection to avoid the simplistic and arbitrary law enforcement and different standards. In the judicial process, require to take compulsory and preservative measures to minimize the impact on the normal production and operation activities of enterprises, especially in these situations that are generally not allowed to be sealed up, seized or frozen, strive to solve the key and difficult problems in the judicial field and optimize the judicial environment. At the same time, the Regulation has made clear provisions on strengthening the supervision and protection of business environment and violating the relevant legal duties of the Regulation to ensure the administrative implementation and enhance the binding force.

The Regulation carries out the new requirements of the Central Government and Provincial Party Committee on optimizing business environment, connects with the latest reform measures of the state and our province, and responds to the needs of market subjects. The promulgation and implementation of the Regulation will provide a strong legal guarantee to improve the competitive soft power of our province and promote the high-quality economic and social development.

In the process of specific work promotion, the Provincial Soft Environment Office, as the operating mechanism for the optimization of business environment in our province, is responsible for the guidance service, supervision and inspection, and acceptance, investigation and handling of the damage to business environment. Meanwhile, the Regulation explicitly requires all-levels of government to establish a comprehensive and coordinated mechanism to optimize business environment, guide as a whole, coordinately promote and regularly consult to optimize business environment. In other words, relevant departments of all-levels of government, supervisory organs, judicial organs and other relevant units and departments should perform their respective duties of optimizing business environment.