Hongqiao International Central Business District should strive to reduce costs
From November 28 to December 2, 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during his inspection in Shanghai that "we must further enhance the energy level of the Hongqiao International Open Hub and continue to run the CIIE and other two-way open platforms". On November 30, 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized at the symposium on deepening the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta that "we must further enhance the radiation energy level of the Hongqiao International Open Hub". As the "core" of the Hongqiao International Open Hub, the Hongqiao International Central Business District must play a leading role in enhancing the energy level and radiation level, and it is necessary to create a higher density of "pole within pole" and "core within core". Among them, building a low-cost, cost-effective business district is the key.
This year, Shanghai has successively issued documents such as "Shanghai's Policies and Measures to Reduce the Burden on Enterprises and Support the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises" and "Several Measures to Further Promote Industrial Cost Reduction and Efficiency Increase and Promote New Industrialization", focusing on reducing corporate costs. For the Hongqiao Business District, it is even more necessary to take a multi-pronged approach and strive to reduce six types of costs.
First, we need to reduce economic costs. Economic costs refer to all costs that an enterprise or individual needs to pay when carrying out production or consumption activities. They are the most direct and explicit costs. On the one hand, we need to launch a number of low-cost entrepreneurial spaces, integrate a number of inefficient and idle resources, and launch them in a targeted manner for innovative entrepreneurs. For qualified enterprises, we will provide rent discounts, industrial guidance funds, and inclusive computing power supply. On the other hand, we need to actively build an industrial ecology, give full play to the advantages of the diverse types of enterprises and complete chains in the Hongqiao Business District, encourage industrial collaboration with the "one core and two belts", accelerate the construction of a number of specialized and characteristic industrial parks, and interpret the vivid practice of "going up and down the stairs is the upstream and downstream, and the industrial park is the industrial chain", so as to hedge against cost challenges with a more mature industrial ecology.
Second, we need to reduce time costs. Time costs refer to the difference in value between a certain amount of funds at different points in time, also known as the "time value of money". On the one hand, we need to further facilitate internal and external traffic, improve the accessibility of the Hongqiao Comprehensive Transportation Hub to the Yangtze River Delta, the whole country and even the world, accelerate the construction of urban rail and rail transit, and improve the traffic efficiency within the Hongqiao Business District. On the other hand, we need to further improve customs clearance efficiency and continuously improve the level of trade facilitation. The previous case of New Zealand's New Zealand milk entering the Shanghai market in 3 days and entering the county market in 3 months is a typical case. We need to focus on the "exhibits into commodities" of the CIIE, provide more efficient and convenient customs clearance services, and reduce the time cost of cross-border trade.
Third, we need to reduce the cost of innovation. The cost of innovation refers to the sum of the costs incurred from the proposal of product concepts, product design, product research and development to the formal production of technological innovation products. On the one hand, we need to create a more open and inclusive innovation atmosphere, give more relaxed and inclusive growth space to new formats and new enterprises that are "unlike four things", and build an atmosphere of "allowing to try" and "allowing to do" for innovation exploration that lacks existing norms and standards. On the other hand, we need to formulate more attractive talent policies, especially for top talents introduced by enterprises through market-oriented paths. Hongqiao Business District should also provide corresponding support and help them apply for various talent qualifications; for high-end talents with an annual income of a certain level, rewards should be given according to a certain proportion; for overseas talents, we should speed up the formulation of a comparison list of overseas professional qualifications and Chinese professional qualifications.
Fourth, we must reduce opportunity costs. Opportunity cost refers to the opportunity for an enterprise to give up another business activity in order to engage in a certain business activity, or another income given up when using certain resources to obtain a certain income. On the one hand, we must provide enterprises with more returns on investment and explore targeted cost-benefit analysis in the promotion of key projects or the planning of key blocks. On the other hand, we must provide enterprises with more market opportunities, especially exploring the first mutual recognition and sharing mechanism within the Hongqiao Business District, studying the establishment of scenario companies, focusing on future industries such as future health, future intelligence, and future space, and regularly publishing scenario application lists for the Yangtze River Delta to provide a broader market space for the transformation and application of innovative products.
Fifth, we need to reduce the cost of information search. Information search cost refers to the sum of various expenses, time, energy and various risks paid to find the lowest market price of a certain item. On the one hand, we need to provide more professional services for enterprises to "bring in and go out" and enhance the international service capabilities of the Hongqiao Central Legal District. On the other hand, we need to enable enterprises in need to find the service agencies they need in the Hongqiao Business District. It is recommended that the Hongqiao Business District take the lead in establishing the Yangtze River Delta Professional Service Sharing Platform, referring to the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Resource Sharing Service Platform, and issue professional service vouchers in the form of science and technology innovation vouchers to further improve the matching degree between supply and demand.
Sixth, we must reduce institutional transaction costs. Institutional transaction costs refer to the costs caused by various institutional tools of the government, that is, the costs that enterprises need to pay when following a series of rules and regulations formulated by the government. On the one hand, we must continue to create a first-class business environment, especially in accordance with the requirements of marketization, rule of law, and internationalization, regularly survey the pain points and bottlenecks of enterprise development, study and formulate more precise "minimally invasive" measures, provide more warm enterprise services, and further enhance the perception of enterprises. On the other hand, we must continue to strengthen the effectiveness of policy implementation, focus on the problems faced by enterprises such as difficulty in finding, solving, and reporting policies, accelerate the construction of the "policy calculator" of Hongqiao Business District and even the "one core and two belts", and continuously improve the "key enterprise service package" system, so as to realize the change from "enterprises looking for policies" to "policies looking for enterprises" as soon as possible, and avoid policy idleness.