China to upgrade entrepreneurship, innovation

2018-09-26
english.gov.cn

The State Council released a circular on Sept 26, laying out tasks for local governments and different ministries to upgrade the nation’s mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

According to the circular, mass entrepreneurship and innovation will be upgraded to drive up employment, and integrate domestic and international innovation resources.

Meanwhile, the nation will roll up its sleeves to build more high-quality innovation clusters, enhance transformation of scientific achievements, and promote integration of large, medium, and small enterprises in the value chain of entrepreneurship and innovation.

To this end, administration streamlining will continue to facilitate procedures to start businesses and cancel business registration.

Rules hindering a unified market and fair competition will be abolished with accelerated steps to release a national negative list for market access.

The nation, as the circular stated, will also enhance the social credit system for better supervision, ensure enterprises in the sharing economy fulfill their responsibilities, and build an effective mechanism in managing new business patterns.

In order to ease entrepreneurship and innovation, the nation will speed up construction of a nationwide government service platform, and optimize its data sharing and exchange system, the circular said.

It also called for more support in fiscal and tax policies and studies on reduction of social insurance premiums. In the future, individual buyers will be exempted from taxes for shares of the National Equities Exchange and Quotations bought in the secondary market.

Provincial tech enterprise incubators and university tech parks, as well as eligible maker spaces, will be exempted from property taxes and value-added tax.

In addition, the nation will also improve its evaluation and risk control system over intellectual property rights (IPR), and strengthen IPR protection with online identification, real-time monitoring, and tracing of origins.

According to the circular, more policies will be on the way to encourage and support research fellows to start businesses beyond their jobs, and a tutorial system will be rolled out to include innovation education and training in universities.

At the same time, the nation will also work on policies to support the entrepreneurship and innovation of migrant workers, veterans, and returned and overseas talent, and encourage more groups to join the undertaking, including women, minorities, youths from Hong Kong and Macao, and Taiwan residents.

In terms of maker spaces, the circular stated that work will be done to make them more professional, with refined management. Incubators will be encouraged to provide services for start-ups in general technology, inspection, accounting, laws, education, and management consultation.

The nation will also build platforms for integrated development of large, medium, and small enterprises, push forward industrial internet, improve Internet Plus services for mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and cultivate key brands in the field.

In the future, financial services for entrepreneurship and innovation will be further optimized, with work in place to build global innovation clusters and promote international cooperation, the circular said.