The district of Tianhe in Guangzhou, capital city of South China's Guangdong province, has recorded a year-on-year growth of 103.2 percent of the number of new firms founded in the first half of this year, according to a report on its economic performance published on July 29.

The report showed that the number of firms registered in Tianhe from January to June in 2021 reached 78,000 and accounted for 33.9 percent of the total figure in Guangzhou over the same period last year and that the district ranked first in all county-level regions in the city for several straight years.

So far, the district is home to 32 national and 28 provincial incubation centers for innovation and entrepreneurship, and its service spaces for innovators ranks the highest in the entire city. There are also 3,378 small and medium-sized scientific firms listed in the national catalogue, four of China's top 100 internet companies, and 26 unicorn companies.

Perhaps people will ask why so many enterprises have settled down in Tianhe and how does the district perform so well?

The district has introduced a total of 169 specific measures in 28 categories for the reform of administrative services, investment factors, business rules, technological innovation and legal protection in the past few years in a drive to build it into a demonstration area for the modern and international business environment.

To achieve its target, Tianhe has further improved its administrative services, streamlined administrative review processes, set up a list of items that can be received and handled online across different provincial regions, added more concrete items related to people's wellbeing, optimized business registration and operation of the special catalogue, and reduced time needed to review public applications for administrative services.

Tianhe has standardized its administrative services, sent local firms about 22,000 pieces of information connected with policy support for their growth, compiled a list of major firms and projects that need favorable support in administrative services, strengthened publicity efforts to make governmental policies better known, and allowed firms to make their taxation declaration on 11 specific items on an integrated application.

Meanwhile, the district has adopted a number of supportive policies to further improve its business environment.

For instance, the on-site service stations have been set up in commercial complexes in the Tianhe Central Business District (CBD) to better help local firms submit their application for administrative services. Governmental employees have also been organized to provide enterprises with door-to-door administrative services and policy counseling. Incomplete figures showed that 1,794 items of administrative services have been handled during their door-to-door visits over the past six months.

Apart from introducing market-oriented and scientific methods in the attraction and assessment of talents, the district has come up with multiple measures, which cover financial assistance, household registration, education, healthcare and housing, to better meet the needs of professional personnel in their engagement in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Tianhe CBD has built a closer partnership with law firms, the associations of lawyers, notary public offices and financial institutes to assist the development of local enterprises in the aspects of legal services, policy counseling and fundraising.

So far, Tianhe Venture Investment Complex has been home to over 300 investment companies and has regularly held investment promotion fairs to bridge the connection between technological and capital factors.

The Tianhe CBD has aligned with advanced international business rules, built international investment promotion and service mechanisms, organized conferences on high-level cooperation and exchanges to expand its access to global resources and promote the opening-up as well as cooperation to a new height, founded a demonstration area for the facilitation of services and trade in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, optimized investment registration approval procedures, facilitated mutual recognition of professional qualifications, professional ranks and titles assessment and career history across the Greater Bay Area, and created a regulatory mechanism with credit as the core and legal service system to regulate economic activities of market players.

The district has built about 6,300 5G base stations and has 750,000 5G users. It will construct over 200 5G base stations and 100 intelligent-controlled street lamps in the Tianhe Road Commercial Circle amid its endeavor to become a national demonstration area for 5G-oriented intelligent city.

In addition, an arbitration center for international trade and the digital economy in the Greater Bay Area will be founded to promote the introduction of a cross-regional online trade dispute resolution mechanism for enterprises from countries in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and accelerate the building of a dispute resolution mechanism for international trade.

The district will step up its efforts in the research and development of core technologies, strengthen the cooperation between research institutes, make a breakthrough in key fields and core technologies such as artificial intelligence and bio-technology, consolidate the capacity-building in fundamental research, cultivate and attract a number of leading firms in the foreign trade of digital services, initiate industrial planning for international financial zone in the Guangzhou AI and Digital Economy Pilot Area, focus on the development of digital finance, digital trade and digital creativity, and strive to be a pilot demonstration area of financial technologies.