SANYA /China/, October 18. /TASS/. The number of new market participants in the city of Sanya (Hainan Province, South China) surpassed 43,800 in Q1-Q3 2021, which is 65% more compared to the data for the same period last year, according to the Hainan Daily newspaper.
The new market participants include around 24,100 businesses and 19,700 individual entrepreneurs, the newspaper writes. This is a 49% and 90.7% increase over the previous year's results, respectively.
According to the newspaper, a significant increase in the number of market participants is the result of the local policy aimed at optimizing the city's business environment. Sanya focuses on the needs of entrepreneurs and is constantly innovating to provide an exceptional business environment. Local governments, for example, offer preferential conditions for launching a business, financial assistance to small and micro businesses, and preferential lending terms. Customs officials in the city are continuing to streamline clearance procedures in order to speed up the process and lower the costs of cross-border trade.
Sanya's government approved a two-year action plan in July 2019 that includes a number of steps targeted at boosting the city's economic environment. The document was created with the World Bank's standards for analyzing the business environment in mind, as well as the requirements of China's National Development and Reform Commission, and included 76 positions in 16 major categories. Among them, in particular, matters of opening new enterprises, issuing building permits, financial transactions, optimizing the tax system, promoting international trade, protecting intellectual property rights, exercising control over the market, and others.
On June 1, 2020, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council of China published a program creating the Hainan free trade port. The document covers the creation of a special customs zone on this tropical island. The Chinese authorities intend to generally complete the free port’s construction in 2025 - by that time, the island should have a mechanism in place to ensure open trade and investment. By 2035, the authorities plan to secure free trade and investment, cross-border movement of capital, entry and exit of people, and freight traffic in Hainan.