Heilongjiang rolls out red carpet for private firms

Heilongjiang will give private firms full support to help them become the most dynamic growth point in the provincial economic boom, said Zhang Qingwei, the provincial Party secretary in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.

President Xi Jinping's recent speech on the private economy has boosted confidence in the private sector of Heilongjiang, an old industrial base in Northeast China.

"The private economy plays an indispensable role in the province since reform and opening-up policies were launched in the late 1970s," Zhang said. "Now the private sector has become a key pillar of the provincial economy."

"In 2017, private businesses contributed more than 51.8 percent of provincial GDP, 51.6 percent of the tax revenue and 71.4 percent of the province's fixed-asset investment," he said. "In the following years, the government will work more on resolving the problems of a weak private economy in the province."

The province aims to promote the private sector's proportion in GDP to 55 percent by 2020, said Zhang.

He also introduced concrete measures, including developing the leading enterprises and groups with strong core competitiveness, promoting specialized and new small enterprises with particular advantages, reviving enterprises after eliminating their losses and forming new economic growth by attracting investment.

"Building a favorable environment is the requisite guarantee for developing private businesses and we have achieved obvious effects with great efforts," he said. "The government will continue to improve the business environment from different aspects."

Zhang said the subsequent work would focus on eliminating some tax items to ease companies' tax burden, solving the companies' financing issues, removing obstacles to support private enterprises to move toward a broader stage, making a concerted effort to ensure the protection of intellectual property rights and deal with commercial disputes, and giving serious punishment to those who damage the business environment.

In the first nine months, the province has cut taxes by around 21.8 billion yuan ($3.13 billion), according to Zhang.

"Furthermore, there will be no vacillation in consolidating and developing the public sector, or in encouraging, supporting and guiding nonpublic sector development," he said. "With the deepening of State-owned enterprise reform, especially mixed-ownership reform, more private capital will be encouraged to participate in the reform."

"During the process, the province will strengthen support in policies, innovation and brand development," he said.

Moreover, a series of innovative policies have been implemented successively.

"In order to reduce the companies' financing costs, banks have been urged to cut interest rate, increase lending, develop more lending products and repayment methods," he said. "We offer tax exemptions to the small and medium-sized companies as well as technology-based startup enterprises."

"A reform of the electric power system will also reduce the enterprises' operation costs," he said. "We promote direct power supply for large customers, which will reduce the costs of industrial and commercial electricity."

"To lower logistics costs, the government is promoting the construction of the system combining various transportations, including road, railway and shipping," he said. "All the measures can well help the enterprises reduce production and operation costs."

Another important task for the province is to build close ties between the government and enterprises, according to Zhang.

"We should welcome private entrepreneurs with open arms and seek their suggestions and opinions through our own initiatives," he said.

He also said that judicial protection of private enterprises and entrepreneurs will be enhanced in accordance with the law to offer them more sense of security.

"At the same time, judicial departments should implement coercive measures against enterprises cautiously, which will minimize the impact on their normal operation," he said. "We will try the best to reassure all the entrepreneurs and to attract more investors to come to Heilongjiang."