[[ifeng.com]MA Liang: It Is Necessary to Pay Attention to Details to Optimize the Business Environment

A few days ago, the General Office of the State Council issued a document requesting to focus on corporate concerns and further promote the implementation of policies to optimize the business environment. The document pointed out that “there are still some shortcomings and outstanding problems in the business environment in China”. “At present, it is urgent to take the market entity’s expectation and demand as the guide, and to solve the “blocking point” and “pain point” in the enterprise’s investment in production and operation, and further make the business environment more marketization, rule of law, and internationalization to enhance corporate confidence and competitiveness."

At present, the business environment of enterprises is facing severe challenges. The turmoil in the international trade situation or the downward pressure on the overall domestic economy, the survival and development of enterprises are facing difficulties. In a period of economic prosperity and relaxed environment, the business environment is important, but the more difficult it is during business operations, the more important the business environment is to the survival of the company. If the business environment is not substantially improved, or even a worrying problem, it will become the "last straw" to stifle the company's survival.

When the improvement of the business environment enters the tough period and the critical period, the reform is not going forward but backforward, so it is necessary to speed up the reform process and ensure the effectiveness of the reform. In terms of the business environment, the State Council has proposed specific action deployments, and it is still necessary to re-emphasize the evaluation, incentives and benchmarking to improve business environment in three ways.

First, the premise for improving the business environment is diagnosis and evaluation, which is to clarify the overall level of the business environment, and which areas, fields and links have “blocking points” and “pain points”. At present, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments are taking the lead in researching the business environment evaluation system. Based on the World Bank report, a set of evaluation plans in line with China's reality has been developed. Evaluating the business environment of each region and various departments and clarifying the prominent problems in the business environment are instructive for guiding the improvement of the business environment.

However, it is still necessary to avoid the distortion and alienation of the business environment assessment caused by the top-down assessment and supervision, and to exert the independent observation role of the third-party evaluation as much as possible. If the government departments have a "barometer" or "dashboard" for the business environment, which can be diagnosed and benchmarked in time, then the room for improvement in the business environment can be greatly expanded.

Secondly, it is necessary to provide sufficient incentives for government departments at all levels to improve the business environment and achieve leapfrog development. The improvement of the business environment involves multi-level, multi-sectoral and multi-field regulation adjustments. Breakthroughs in many links are inevitably risky and erroneous. If the government cannot provide space for fault tolerance and correction, it will be difficult to stimulate the improvement of the business environment.

“The details are the devil.” The “blocking point” and “pain point” in the business environment are often hidden in specific links. It is necessary to mobilize the initiative of the grassroots departments so that they have the will and courage to clear and open the “last kilometer” of the business environment.

In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the benchmarking management so that all localities and departments can best practice the standard business environment and promote its continuous improvement. We have seen many regions and departments have made great efforts to improve the business environment and greatly facilitated the work of enterprises in the areas of registration, financing, trade, research and development.

It is worth noting that these effective systems and practices are not widely used in other regions and departments. The reason is that on the one hand, these best practices have not been effectively refined and disseminated, and on the other hand, other regions and departments lack the motivation and ability to follow suit.

It can be seen that the improvement of the business environment needs to be “free and retractable”, providing incentives and space for local experiments and innovations, as well as strengthening coordination at the central level. In this regard, we should learn from the "Internet plus government services" and commercial system reform practices, strengthen local experience summaries and central top-level design, so that best practices that are effective and universally valuable can be promoted nationwide. For example, a standard system, roadmap and timetable for the business environment can be drawn up so that local government departments can optimize the business environment without compromise.