Li Qiang: Hold Fast to and Put Meticulous and Thorough Effort into Reform and Opening up Release date:2018-01-03

Strive for New Breakthroughs by Focusing on Priorities and Key Points

■ Achieve new breakthroughs in building a top environment for business operations. Build Shanghai into a city with the highest level of trade and investment facilitation, the highest efficiency in administration, standardized service management and a complete system for rule of law by benchmarking against international advanced level, deepen reforms to “delegate power, streamline administration, and optimize government services”, make efforts to develop stronger, better and larger state-owned capital, vigorously support the development of private enterprises, substantially widen market access, and actively utilize foreign capital.

■ Achieve new breakthroughs in building carrier platforms for cooperative development. Drive the agglomeration of advantageous resources, spur innovation-driven development of industries, make every effort to provide guaranteed services for the first CIIE, deepen studies into the spillover effect and driving effect,  and strive to create new platforms, new highlights and new brands in Shanghai’s development.

■ Achieve new breakthroughs in enhancing the capability to give strong impetus to development. Continually strengthen the core functions of the city, improve the capability to deploy global resources in an all-round manner so as to better serve the Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze River basin region and even the whole country.

On the first work day of 2018, Secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee Li Qiang conducted an inspection tour on the reform and opening up in Shanghai. During the tour, Li Qiang presided over a seminar themed by “further deepening reform and expanding opening up” and delivered a speech. As stressed by Li Qiang, Shanghai owes its current development to the policy of reform and opening up, so the next step is to deepen this policy so as to achieve further development. It is necessary to, by fully carrying out the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC, following the requirement of Secretary General Xi Jinping to “carry the reform through to the end” and deeply implementing the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Shanghai Municipal Committee of the CPC, to be confident and resolute to restart the reform and opening up policy, hold fast to and put meticulous and thorough effort into the great mission and strive to achieve new breakthroughs at the new starting point to usher in the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up with brilliant achievements.

To hold the CIIE is a significant decision made by the CPC Central Committee with Secretary General Xi Jinping at the core, with a view to promoting a new round of high quality opening up, and the whole city of Shanghai is sparing no effort to proceed with relevant work. Li Qiang paid a visit to (Shanghai) National Exhibition and Convention Center located in the core area of Hongqiao Central Business District (Hongqiao CBD)—to inspect the utilization of and restructuring arrangements for relevant venues, and learn about the progress of preparations and supporting work. Li Qiang pointed out that the key to deepening opening up and cooperation is to build a number of in-depth, meticulous functional carrier platforms so as to create core competitiveness and brand influence. The priority of work in this year is to ensure the success of the first CIIE in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce and other departments to give full play to its role as an important carrier to promote a new round of opening up.

By aiming at the goal of building “a first-class global business district”, Hongqiao CBD is making efforts to improve the quality of its development and construction, and a layout featuring great commerce, great transport and great exhibition is being formed gradually. Li Qiang heard on the site the report on the overall planning, construction and the function development of the CBD, and then walked into the Service Center for Enterprises to learn about more details about procedure handling and relevant services for those companies based in the CBD. Li Qiang pointed out that to optimize the environment for business operations is an important key point for deepening reform and opening up, and it is necessary for Hongqiao CBD to put more effort into “commerce” so that the CBD can sharpen its competitive edge, shape its own characteristics and make its brand famous. Roche Diagnostics (Shanghai) Ltd., one of the first batch of Top 500 companies in the world which have settled in The HUB, is a worldwide leading company in In-Vitro Diagnostics. Li Qiang visited the company’s testing lab, watched its equipment display, inquired about its development and carefully listened to the opinions and suggestions from the head of the company. He asked the persons-in-charge of the Administrative Committee to create a better environment and provide better services to support the innovation-driven development of various companies in Shanghai.

At the seminar, persons-in-charge of the People’s Bank of China Shanghai Head Office, CIIEB, Shanghai Customs, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, and Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, as well as the representative of Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals Ltd. made a statement respectively. Li Qiang made a note of them carefully and had discussions with the participants about the advancement of a new round of reform and opening up in Shanghai.

As pointed out by Li Qiang, reform and opening up is a vital measure which determines the destiny of the contemporary China. Since reform and opening up, especially that of Pudong, was commenced, the city’s pioneering spirit of bravery has given birth to a series of groundbreaking feats, and led to a historic leap in the urban development. For reform and opening up, it is always in the progressive tense without the perfect tense. After entering the new era, it is imperative for Shanghai to benchmark against the highest standards and the best level so as to shoulder new missions and make new achievements, to hold fast to the development orientation of pursuing excellence in the context of the new era, to focus on cultivation of its strategic advantages in development and to adhere to the mission of deepening reform and expanding opening up. It is necessary for Shanghai to advance various reforms in a unified manner by following the requirement raised by the CPC Central Committee that Shanghai should be a vanguard and pioneer in reform and opening-up and innovation-driven development, with the economic system reform as the driving force and the construction of the pilot free trade zone as a breaking point, so as to enable market to play a decisive role actually in resource allocation, and enable the government to play its role better. It is also required to extend the breadth and depth of opening up in an all-round manner, and fully utilize the domestic and the global markets and resources, so as to achieve mutual promotion between domestic and international opening up, and accelerate the formation of a new system of open economy to facilitate China’s participation in global economic governance.

Li Qiang stressed that we must strive to achieve new breakthroughs by focusing on priorities and key points. The first is to achieve new breakthroughs in building a top environment for business operations. Build Shanghai into a city with the highest level of trade and investment facilitation, the highest efficiency in administration, standardized service management and a complete system for rule of law by benchmarking against international advanced level, deepen reforms to “delegate power, streamline administration, and optimize government services”, make efforts to develop stronger, better and larger state-owned capital, vigorously support the development of private enterprises, substantially widen market access, and actively utilize foreign capital. The second is to achieve new breakthroughs in building carrier platforms for cooperative development. Drive the agglomeration of advantageous resources, spur innovation-driven development of industries, make every effort to provide guaranteed services for the first CIIE, deepen studies into the spillover effect and driving effect, and strive to create new platforms, new highlights and new brands in Shanghai’s development. The third is to achieve new breakthroughs in enhancing the capability to give strong impetus to development. Continually strengthen the core functions of the city, improve the capability to deploy global resources in an all-round manner so as to better serve the Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze River basin region and even the whole country.

Li Qiang pointed out that we should take the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up as an opportunity to gather a great strength to further deepen reform and expand opening up. It is necessary for very district, department and unit in Shanghai to put forward clear plans and measures to start a new upsurge in promoting reform and opening up. To that end, it is required to create a good social atmosphere and shape powerful synergy, mobilize the vast cadres and masses citywide to support and participate in reform, promptly summarize and promote those worthy experience and practices in reform and opening up, and encourage and provide support for bold attempts and exploration of all citizens to produce more fruits.

Vice Minister of the Ministry of Commerce and Director of CIIEB Wang Bingnan attended the inspection tour concerned, and leaders of Shanghai Municipality Zhou Bo and Zhuge Yujie attended the inspection tour and the seminar. (Reporter: Tan Yan)

source:Strive for New Breakthroughs by Focusing on Priorities and Key Points