A contact point offering one-stop services to foreign-invested enterprises was inaugurated at the Hunan Pilot Free Trade Zone Changsha Area on August 26. This is an effective measure for Changsha to further enhance foreign investment facilitation and optimize the investment environment.

Guided by the Three Highlands and Four New Missions Strategy, enterprises have become increasingly enthusiastic about investing in Changsha. In 2020, the Hunan Pilot Free Trade Zone Changsha Area added a cumulative total of 3,295 new enterprises.

“The contact point will keep close communication with foreign-invested enterprises at the Hunan Pilot Free Trade Zone Changsha Area,” said Zheng Ping, director of the Changsha Municipal Commerce Bureau and director of the Management Committee of Hunan Pilot Free Trade Zone Changsha Area. He noted that, the contact point will provide one-stop and whole-process services for foreign-invested enterprises, from pre-establishment consultation to enterprise registration, from project construction to investment and operation, and from problem coordination to complaint handling.

The contact point adopts the “1+5” mode, including 1 main contact point at the Hunan Pilot Free Trade Zone Changsha Area and 1 sub-contact point at each of the area’s 5 blocks.

“The contact point will save time and labor cost for enterprises, and greatly improve government management efficiency,” said Director Zheng. Related work will be jointly promoted by the departments of commerce, market supervision, taxation, customs, human resources and social security, and public security. Meanwhile, a joint coordination mechanism for offering one-stop services to foreign-invested enterprises will be established, to achieve multi-department and multi-layered coordination among relevant functional departments of Changsha’s major areas, districts, counties (including county-level cities), industrial parks, and blocks.

It is worth noting that the importance of one-stop services to foreign investors lies not only in the government services themselves, but also in Changsha’s market activities and potential.

Changsha’s actually utilized foreign capital, or foreign direct investment (FDI), amounted to 1.103 billion dollars in the January-July period, accounting for 84.7% of the province's total. The growth rate was 56.4%, 25.5 percentage points higher than the country and 14.9 percentage points higher than the province.

From January to July, 143 new foreign-invested enterprises were registered in Changsha, with a year-on-year growth of 38.8%.

As of the end of 2020, 173 Fortune Global 500 companies (including 99 Fortune Global 500 overseas companies) had invested or set up offices in Changsha. This year, Fortune Global 500 overseas companies including BASF of Germany, and Aeon and Mitsui & Co., Ltd of Japan made investments in Changsha.

Source: en.changsha.gov.cn