The secretaries are most concerned about this matter, and the "first meeting of the New Year" in each province and city

On the first day of construction, the Hunan Provincial Party Committee issued a "Notice on Carrying out a Grand Discussion on Emancipating the Mind in the Province", which triggered heated discussions.

In the afternoon of the same day, the province's "first meeting of the New Year" - the province's investment promotion work conference was held in Changsha, emphasizing that focusing on investment promotion, economic development, and development should be focused on emancipating the mind and implementing it. Concrete actions.

The relationship between "liberating the mind" and "attracting investment" can be interpreted in multiple ways. However, judging from the “first meeting of the New Year” held in various places after the Spring Festival, Hunan is by no means alone in attaching importance to investment promotion. In addition to some conferences directly with the theme of attracting investment, whether it is Henan's "Ten Thousand People Helping Thousands of Enterprises" or the "Optimizing Business Environment" of many provinces, they all embody a similar spirit of Hunan's "people are united as one, pro-business and valuing business" urgency and determination.

The major issue that is most on the minds of local governments and officials is the fight for the economy.

After analyzing all the text in the reports of the "First New Year Meeting" in various provinces and cities, the most frequently mentioned word is "enterprise", which even exceeds the frequency of the word "high-quality development" that represents the central government's requirements.

Needless to say, the urgency of local governments to fight for the economy this year is unprecedented. However, the government can only provide policies and draw blueprints. The main body of fighting in the battlefield still depends on thousands of enterprises.

And this enterprise obviously has a certain emphasis. This year's "first meeting of the New Year" in various places, according to People's Daily Online, is to "invite the private economy to the 'C position'."

More than 90% of Chinese enterprises belong to the private economy, and they contribute more than 50% of China's tax revenue, more than 60% of China's GDP, more than 70% of technological innovation results, and more than 80% of urban employment.

In Guangdong, Anhui, Fujian and other places, outstanding private entrepreneurs were invited to the conference site to offer advice and suggestions on high-quality economic development.

At the "First Meeting of the New Year" in Anhui, the meeting notice commended the province's 100 outstanding private enterprises and 100 outstanding private entrepreneurs, and proposed that "we must effectively implement various aspects such as valuing business, ensuring business safety, pro-business, warming business, and protecting business." The job is done well.”

In the conference reports, the keywords most closely related to “enterprise” are “transformation” and “innovation”.

Chen Jining, Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, pointed out that through the continuous optimization of the business environment, attracting and gathering first-class enterprises at home and abroad, it can release a positive signal of reform, opening up and high-quality development to the world. Fully stimulate the enterprise's endogenous motivation and potential, continue to create a strong atmosphere of "dare to work, dare to venture, dare to invest", and better gather the powerful force to strive to achieve the annual goals in one jump.

At the provincial government executive meeting held on the 18th, Hubei Province clearly emphasized the need to "seize the transformation of the automobile industry" and support enterprises in adjusting their product structure to consolidate and expand overseas markets.

"Business environment" is another high-frequency word in the "first meeting of the New Year" in various places this year.

If enterprises are the main body and the cultivated trees, then the "business environment" is water.

Summarizing the business environment optimization measures of various provinces and cities, it mainly includes three major aspects:

Chen Jining, Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, requested at the conference that enterprises should "response to requests and do not disturb anything". The specific method is to enhance the initiative of work and the predictability of services, regularly contact and visit enterprises, discover and solve enterprise problems in a timely manner, and "shop waiters" “The brand is polished even brighter.

Some places have also proposed making good use of new technologies to improve government services. The province-wide optimizing business environment and accelerating project construction conference held in Jilin Province emphasized the use of "relaxing digital supervision to promote vitality and establishing various digital platforms for enterprises and the public" to provide high-quality and convenient government services.

The Conference on Optimizing the Business Environment held in Hebei Province emphasized the promotion of "handling high-frequency matters online and on the mobile phone" to achieve "one-time handling, one-station handling, and one-online handling" of corporate affairs.

Mainly aimed at the problem of difficult and expensive financing for enterprises.

According to data from the People's Bank of China, of China's social financing stock in 2022, state-owned enterprises received 138.9 trillion yuan, accounting for 40.4%; while private enterprises received 70.2 trillion yuan, accounting for only 20.3%, and the funds received were only state-owned 50.5% of the enterprise. In terms of financing costs, the average annual interest rate of loans obtained by state-owned enterprises is 3.8%, while that of private enterprises is as high as 5.6%. The financing costs of private enterprises are 47.4% higher than that of state-owned enterprises.

In this regard, Hebei Province emphasizes "guiding financial institutions to strengthen financial support for small, medium and micro enterprises" and providing support in aspects such as land supply and talent factors, including "improving full-cycle management mechanisms such as planning, investment promotion, land supply, and exit", "Vigorously develop vocational education and create a high-level professional and skilled talent team" etc.

Anhui emphasizes the optimization of the business environment, including market environment, legal environment and social environment. Only in an environment where competition is orderly, fair, and trustworthy can the development of private enterprises be externally guaranteed.

In the latest "Shanghai City Adhere to Benchmarking Reform and Continuously Create a World-class Business Environment Action Plan" released by Shanghai, regulatory enforcement is detailed into various fields, including promoting technological empowerment and smart supervision of digital systems, targeting new industries and new industries. Supervision guidelines for business formats and new models, and guidance on promoting “legal physical examinations” and “compliance physical examinations”.

The “first meeting of the New Year” in many provinces simply focuses on investment promotion conferences.

If cultivating the business environment is a "quiet" approach, focusing more on the macro and long-term; then attracting investment is a "move-in" approach, focusing on immediate results.

The local government's sense of urgency in attracting investment, as stated in news reports of some provincial conferences, is that they are "seizing the day" and "cannot afford to wait" or "cannot sit still."

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the average increase in fixed investment in 2023 is only 3.87%, which is a certain decrease compared with before the epidemic. Private investment has entered negative year-on-year growth since May last year, and its proportion has also gradually declined. Against the background of the slowdown in overall investment growth, competition and involution in various places are not only incremental, but even existing.

Some provinces and cities emphasize that they should not only increase investment promotion efforts, but also pay attention to and improve the quality of investment attraction.

For example, the province's high-level opening up and high-quality investment promotion conference held in Shandong Province emphasized the need to "select investment areas", focusing on digital economy, advanced manufacturing, energy transformation, "three new things", marine economy and other fields, and It is required to "strictly control standards and prevent investment risks."

Hunan Province’s provincial investment promotion work conference emphasized that investment promotion should “make use of one’s own strengths” and adapt measures to local conditions. This includes seizing new tracks from the technological revolution and international and domestic industrial division of labor, or leveraging the location advantage of being located in the “Belt and Road Initiative” to gather resources and expand connectivity.

The first cold wave after the New Year in the Year of the Dragon is coming to China, but the hot atmosphere of various places gearing up for economic development has dispelled the chill. By arranging key tasks, starting major projects, and issuing a package of policies, the economy will get off to a good start!