When a law firm relocates, it must navigate multiple procedures like alteration and deregistration. These procedural tasks are extremely cumbersome, causing Huang Houwen, the director of Sichuan Huangjueshu Law Firm, to consider backing out at one point. This year, Huang Houwen has set the relocation plan in motion, aiming to transfer the entire law firm to the Tianfu Central Legal Services District in Tianfu New Area by the end of September.
A significant factor in easing his concerns is the integrated authorization reform pilot initiated in Sichuan in January 2023.
This reform leverages list-based bulk authorization and targeted policy support to expedite the elimination of institutional barriers that hinder high-quality development in pilot regions, thus bolstering these regions' economic and social vitality. Sichuan has chosen nine national or provincial-level new areas or development zones for the pilot program, including Tianfu New Area, Chengdu Eastern New Area, Yibin Sanjiang New Area, Nanchong Linjiang New District, Mianyang Science and Technology City New District, Deyang National Economic and Technological Development Zone, Sichuan Luzhou Baijiu Industrial Park, Zigong High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, and Dazhou High-Tech Industrial Park.
Among the array of reforms, Huang Houwen benefits from the pilot program granting Tianfu New Area the authority to approve the establishment, alteration and deregistration of law firms and their branches. Building on this foundation, Tianfu New Area has introduced a range of targeted service measures to ensure a smooth process during the relocation and registration, further bolstering Huang Houwen's confidence in future development. For the Tianfu Central Legal Services District, the reform has a significant role in accelerating the aggregation of the legal services industry.
How does the integrated authorization reform foster a "fountain of vitality" for high-quality development in Sichuan? To explore this, the reporter recently visited several pilot areas.
What does the reform pilot include?
It entails not just delegating power but also authorizing and empowering.
The Mianyang Science and Technology City New District Sub-bureau of the Mianyang Municipal Market Supervision Bureau recently utilized the "one-item approval" testing process for starting a catering business and successfully processed the application from Mianyang Yi'an Xiongmao Hotel Management Co., Ltd. Prior to the reform, the public had to visit four separate departments for document-related matters, a process that was quite cumbersome. Now, post-reform, applicants only need to fill out a single form and submit their documents once. They can complete the processing of multiple departmental documents through the Sichuan Integrated Government Service Platform and collect all the documents in one window.
The "one-stop" service introduced by the Mianyang Science and Technology City New District exemplifies the improvement in government service efficiency brought about by the integrated authorization reform. The reporter discovered that government service efficiency across nine pilot areas has improved to varying degrees. In Chengdu Eastern New Area, for instance, the notification-commitment system and a provisional pre-review system for project approvals have led to a 58.9 percent reduction in the full-process project approval time. Yibin Sanjiang New Area has piloted a "comprehensive window" reform, boosting government service efficiency through measures like reducing paperwork and streamlining processes. Currently, 82 percent of matters are handled completely online.
The integrated authorization reform not only delegates power but also authorizes and empowers. Last year, Sichuan Province released the implementation plan for the integrated authorization reform in nine pilot areas, accompanied by two lists respectively detailing provincial-level authorizations and support items. The province has crafted differentiated reform items for the pilot areas based on their development orientation, economic foundation, and comparative advantages, focusing on enhancing the efficiency of government services, shaping industrial development advantages, promoting the efficient use of land resources, strengthening financial and fiscal support, improving technological innovation capabilities, raising the level of opening up, and optimizing management systems and mechanisms.
Currently, the relevant provincial departments have defined 25 provincial-level authorization items and 249 provincial-level support items. Additionally, at the municipal level, a total of 114 authorization items and 168 support items have been developed to supplement the pilot areas. A relevant leading official from the Office of the Commission for Deepening Overall Reform of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee explained the procedure for establishing provincial-level authorization items, where the pilot areas initiate authorization requests and then provincial departments evaluate to provide feedback, thus effectively realizing synergistic and cumulative effects, symbolized as "1+1>2". So far, most provincial-level authorization items have been effectively put into place, with the implementation rate for provincial-level support items surpassing 99 percent.
How is the reform progressing?
Efforts are focused on four key aspects to explore a path towards high-quality development.
The integrated authorization reform pilot, marked as the strongest in provincial-level authorization and the most extensive in support scope in recent years, fully aligns with and implements the important requirements for making further progress in four aspects, as proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping during his inspection tour to Sichuan.
In the realm of concerted efforts in sci-tech innovation and the application of sci-tech achievements, the Mianyang Science and Technology City New District has pioneered a science and technology collaboration mechanism, which culminated in the selection and collection of over 700 items of technological demands and sci-tech achievements, the completion of over 400 chime-in projects, and the successful transformation of over 30 sci-tech outcomes. A range of "Made in Mianyang" products, such as the broadband coaxial probe, have overcome foreign restrictions, achieving domestic substitution.
In the realm of targeted efforts to build a modern industrial system, the Zigong High-Tech Industrial Development Zone is pioneering a "cluster strengthening and chain enhancement" mechanism for the new energy sector, with sodium-ion batteries as the core technology, and additionally has founded the Shenghai Sodium-Ion Battery Industry Investment Fund. In the first five months, Zigong's new energy industry recorded a 110.7 percent increase in output value.
In the realm of comprehensive efforts to advance rural revitalization, the Yibin Sanjiang New Area is pioneering a new trajectory for "synchronized development of new industrialization, information technology application, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, along with urban-rural integration". The Yangtze River Industrial Park Development Pilot Zone has implemented 13 small-point reforms and completed the province's first integrated natural resource transfer project.
In the realm of consistent efforts to consolidate ecological shields along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, the Deyang Economic and Technological Development Zone is pioneering and enhancing a new green and low-carbon development model. It has established the Dongfang Hydrogen Industrial Park and seven provincial-level green factories, earning a spot in the province's key parks for green and low-carbon advantageous industries. In 2023, the output value of its clean energy equipment reached 75.4 billion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 11.7 percent.
Furthermore, various localities have initiated innovative explorations in other domains tailored to their unique industrial development characteristics. For example, the Nanchong Linjiang New District has been proactively advancing the construction of a comprehensive pilot zone for cross-border e-commerce, aiming to develop it into a national-level pilot. In the first five months, this pilot zone achieved a cross-border e-commerce transaction value of 734 million yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 10.5 percent. The Luzhou Jiangyang Economic Development Zone has investigated mechanisms for highly efficient allocation of factor resources and actively implemented the technological transformations with zero land increase and the mixed land use reforms, achieving an output per mu (approximately 0.07 hectares) of nearly ten million yuan, placing it among the top in the province's "output per mu" performance assessment. The Dazhou High-Tech Industrial Park is exploring a working mechanism that incorporates "city-district joint construction, integrated efficiency, and enterprise principal role". It developed the "Wan Shi Xing" comprehensive service platform to high standards, which was successfully approved as China's first national-level standardized pilot in the private economy service sector. This initiative has enhanced operational efficiency for key provincial and municipal projects by 52 percent and achieved over 20 percent cost reduction and efficiency increase for enterprises.
In the first quarter, the GDP growth rate in the nine pilot areas averaged 11.6 percent, exceeding the provincial average by 5.5 percentage points. Among them, the Chengdu Eastern New Area and the Mianyang Science and Technology City New District recorded year-on-year growth rates of 19 percent and 17.7 percent, respectively.
