Han Ximin, He Mufu

ximhan@126.com

APPROVALS of government-funded construction projects, from initial applications to the issuance of permits, will be completed within 90 workdays, about one-third of the existing time limit, under the “Shenzhen 90” reform plan to streamline government approval procedures.

For private investments, the approval deadline is set to be within 33 working days, according to two documents released by the Shenzhen government yesterday to further streamline approval procedures and improve the business environment.

The two documents have been approved by the city government and will take effect Aug. 1, according to a news conference yesterday.

“After the two documents are implemented, the approval of government-funded housing projects and urban linear projects, such as railways, roads and pipelines, will take 85 and 90 workdays respectively. Private-funded construction projects will be given the go-ahead in 33 working days after the land use contracts for the projects are signed,” said Wang Gang, deputy secretary general with the Shenzhen Municipal Government, at the conference.

The six steps for government-funded projects, from the proposal to feasibility study, plan design, preliminary design, construction design and public biddings, have been consolidated into three steps, namely land use approval, planning approval and construction approval. The list of approval items will be shortened from 61 items to 49 items.

Under the new reform measures, the number of items for approval of government-funded projects will be reduced from 81 to 50. The items for approval of private investments will be reduced by 18 to 63.

To cut red tape, the scattered approvals related to multiple agencies will be merged, unified, and headed by one agency.

“The applicants don’t need to go between agencies and can file applications at one agency,” said Wang.

To ensure efficiency, the administrative approvals at the government level and application procedures from construction units will be pushed forward side by side.

The new measures also require related agencies to establish credit information sharing systems based on their approval monitoring systems. Violators, including companies and employees, who fail to honor their projects and contracts will be blacklisted and shamed.

Last July, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, required first-tier cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, to pilot reformative measures to improve the business environment. At the beginning of the year, the city unveiled 20 measures to improve the business environment. One of the measures was to push forward administrative reform.

Premier Li Keqiang stressed in the annual government work report in March that one of the priorities in 2018 was to shorten the processing time for government approvals by half.

The Chinese Government eased the investment approval procedure last year by canceling 15 approvals and delegating 23 approvals from the central to local governments.

With what had been done in 2013, 76 percent of administrative approvals have been abolished or delegated.