On September 6, 2018, Professor Hong Cheng, Dean of IQDS and Director of China Enterprise Survey Data Center, made a keynote speech on the research report “Competition policies and high-quality development of enterprises” at the Market Regulation Forum 2018, demonstrating continuous optimization of market environment for fair competition in China during recent years.
As shown by the research data in the report, the continuous optimization of market environment for fair competition is mainly substantiated as the following aspects: First, market activity is undergoing a boost. The proportion of private companies rose to 76.5% in 2017 from 74.2% in 2015, and the new market participants established after 2013 had an average investment growth rate of 14.2% during the period of 2015 to 2017, which was 7.4% percentage points higher than the overall average growth rate. Second, market equality is improving. Under a scale of 10-point rating system, the fairness of judicial proceedings was rated 7.41 points, while the standards of administrative charges were rated 8.6 points. Third, transparency of market is increasing. The ratio of online administrative approvals surged to 52% in 2017 from 25% in 2015, and the number of days that a company spend on various administrative affairs each month decreased to 4.5 days in 2017 from 14.2 days in 2015. Market credit is ameliorating. The percentage of firms with labor disputes dropped from 8.6% in 2015 to 7.9% in 2017. Quality development is consistently upgrading in firms. The growth rate of total factor productivity ascended to 2.5% during the period of 2015 to 2017 from 1.7% during the term of 2013 to 2015, with an increase of 0.8 percentage points. The proportion of companies applying for trademarks increased to 48 % in 2017 from 44.7% in 2015, with an increase of 3.3 percentage points.
As indicated in the report, fairer competition environment contributes to higher quality development of market entities, and higher market activity leads to increasing value-added rate during high-quality development. The value-added rate of products is 3.6 percentage points higher than average in regions where their market entities have relatively higher growth rate of revenue. Higher equality among market entities promotes rising smarter investment during high-quality development. In regions with higher rating in fairness of judicial proceedings, the rate of using industrial robots is 22.2% higher than average. Higher transparency of market facilitates higher utilization of production capacity during high-quality development. The utilization of production capacity is 6.4% higher than average in regions with fewer days of administrative approval. Higher credit of market entities enhances greater R&D capability during high-quality development. The R&D capability is 12.7% greater than average in regions with better protection of intellectual property.
As suggested in the report, in order to promote high-quality development by improving market environment for fair competition, international competitiveness of our nation’s business environment should be further improved; business activity of private companies should be further boosted; fairness of subsidies should be further increased; protection of intellectual property should be enhanced; government inspection and evaluation should be further standardized; progress of online administrative approval should be further accelerated; labor protection policies should be further standardized, and fairness of investment preferences should be further improved.
This report is the research results of high-quality development based on the data collected from the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES). China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) was jointly conducted by China Society of Market Supervision (CSMS) and Wuhan University, with the participation and efforts of 345 teachers and students organized by Wuhan University, in five provinces of China including Guangdong, Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan and Jilin. During the survey, a large quantity of effective survey questionnaires were collected from 101 county-level governments, 1,833 firms and 19,321 employees, and most indicators in the report are based on the data collected during five consecutive years from 2013 to 2017.
The report has received enormous and widespread attention from the spotlight since it was released. On September 8, its research results were published on the headline of the front page of China Industry & Commerce News.