Chen Xiaochun, Tan Yifan

    Cicitan2011@gmail.com

    THE first Qianhai Legal Intelligence Forum with the theme of “Innovative Development and the Development of a Legal Environment for Doing Business” was held Friday at the Shenzhen Zijing Mountain Villa in Xili, Nanshan District.

    The forum, organized by the China Institution for Discerning Foreign Law and supported by China’s Supreme People’s Court, the China Law Society, the Collaborative Innovation Center of Judicial Civilization and the Guangdong’s Higher People’s Court, was attended by over 200 well-known scholars, enterprise representatives and lawyers from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

    The forum focused on law ascertainment for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative, reducing the costs of institutional trading and helping Chinese enterprises “go global.”

    “Whether it’s about our products going global, our enterprises going global or our capital, we all face different types of legal issues,” said Tang Gongyuan, a legal expert at the Benchmark Chambers International (BCI), during his speech at the forum.

    Tang said that to cope with such legal issues, we need to learn about the laws and regulations of the export destinations, for example, the relevant laws on export control for the U.N., the EU and the United States, so as to protect our enterprises in a better way.

    “We are trying to build this forum into a Davos for the field of law by inviting elites from all over the world to provide suggestions on how to build Qianhai into a legal highland,” said Jiang Xilin, director of Shenzhen’s Bureau of Justice.

    Jiang also stressed that innovation and entrepreneurship went hand in hand with the rule of law. He said that without a favorable legal environment, an innovation and entrepreneurship friendly environment would be impossible to achieve.

    Wesley Wai-chung Wong, a solicitor general of Hong Kong’s Department of Justice, said, “Enterprises need to manage the legal risks that might occur during investment and other commercial activities. Law ascertainment is very important for instances such as the choice of applicable law when enterprises enter into a contract, the choice of a dispute settlement mechanism and the place of arbitration.”

    He Zijun, vice director of the Qianhai Authority, told the forum that Qianhai will strive to set up a diversified dispute settlement mechanism so as to meet the demands of both Chinese and foreign enterprises in the area.