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Foreign firms get high-tech, proactive assistance

Source: Shanghai Daily | October 12, 2013, Saturday | Print Edition

Government officials are using such techniques as QQ chat groups, dedicated online assistance, virtual meetings with officials and experts, and even house calls to businesses in their quest to help foreign-funded firms. Xu Wenwen talks to officials and executives.

When Gunnar Andersson, a  Swedish auto parts company executive, just started a new venture in Hangzhou, he had so little knowledge about China’s policies of foreign-funded enterprises that he did not know to give his company an English-language name when applying to the local government to operate.

His oversight, however, alerted the Hangzhou Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau to the Swede’s lack of knowledge and prompted the bureau to come forward to help him with correct procedures to start his Hangzhou Fameco Trade Co Ltd.

Also, the bureau’s use of online policy consultation fairs and communication with businesses via the popular QQ instant messaging software save foreign executives and their workers a great deal of time that they would use in going to government to get problems solved. Instead, they consult government experts on the Internet.

“The methods save us much time so we can put more energy into doing business,” said Fan Zhuxiang, Fameco’s financial manager. “Sometimes I thought my questions were too complicated to be answered that way, but they replied to all of my questions with specifics.”

Just like Fameco, more and more foreign-invested and foreign trade companies in Hangzhou are taking advantage of the forward-thinking policies of the Hangzhou trade bureau.

In 2009, Hangzhou’s government launched the Foreign-invested Enterprises Service QQ Platform to educate foreign investors. Foreign investors can use it to learn about Chinese policies and interact with such bureaus as tax, customs, and the e-port business database.

The platform has 55 QQ groups serving more than 8,000 foreign-invested and foreign trade companies in Hangzhou, including those in the urban area and in suburban counties like Yuhang and Xiaoshan.

The Hangzhou Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau operates 10 of those groups in the platform, attracting more than 2,600 enterprises, and the staff promises to “100 percent efficiently answer all questions.”

The service platform is open 24 hours a day. Officials are at their stations eight hours a day to answer inquiries from businesses. So far it has handled 250,000 inquiries. In August alone it satisfactorily answered 1,500 customer inquiries.

The QQ service also helps departments promote new government policies. All platform members can download policy documents and learn about ongoing trends at a related website. The latest currency exchange rates are also published on the QQ space.

This year, the annual policy consultation fair was held online instead of being held at hotels during the Hangzhou Foreign-invested Enterprises Service Month. The change responds to the central government’s call for wise use of government budgets, officials said.

The service month, held annually since 2004, has not gone away but continues to improve the city’s business environment through the QQ platform, promotion of 100 foreign investment programs and house calls to businesses.

From August 12 to August 20, the QQ service platform hosted 10 special online policy consultation conferences. Ten government departments and over 70 government officials and experts participated in online exchanges with businesses.

The 10 conferences were about such topics as foreign investment, foreign trade and outsourcing and reached out to more than 12,000 participants.

And 20 of the 700 problems brought up were solved on the spot.

Bureau officials even make house calls to help businesses with problems.

“Before, it was we businesses that went to the government to ask if the procedures and papers were correct so they could be approved, but now it’s the government that goes to businesses to check if we have problems or questions,” said Shi Chenfeng, assistant president of the Zhejiang Kaiyuan Hotel Group.

The hotel, listed on the Hong Kong stock market as of July, also benefitted from the QQ platform. “The bureau staff even worked overtime to shorten our company’s approval period,” Shi said.

Companies can also use hotlines such as (0571) 8508-5175 for foreign trade, (0571) 8700-8629 for foreign investment, (0571) 8517-0203 for outsourcing and (0571) 8515-9385 for foreign economies.

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