Cleaner environment, healthier business

Optimizing the business environment is necessary to promote the high-quality development of and modernization of the national governance system and governance capability. The resolution adopted at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in July emphasized that a first-rate business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and internationalized would be fostered. The Central Economic Work Conference held in December, also stressed that efforts must be made to resolutely combat corruption and maintain a fair and just market environment and a clean business environment.

The business environment directly affects market confidence, enterprises' motivation and economic development vitality, so it should be optimized as an important part of political supervision. Meanwhile, the government should crack down on corruption — because it damages the business environment — and enhance supervision to safeguard the high-quality development of the economy.

In order to optimize the business environment, efforts should be made to boost the confidence of enterprises, especially private and foreign-funded enterprises, and enhance their development vitality.

China's non-public sector has been developing rapidly, playing an important role in stabilizing growth, promoting innovation, increasing employment and improving people's livelihoods. And China remains committed to promoting the sustained, healthy and high-quality development of the private economy, which is an important part of the socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.

However, some officials have been abusing their power to carry out frequent inspections, impose fines at random or heavy penalties for minor offenses, severely affecting the normal operation of enterprises. While some officials are irresponsible and inefficient, unable to apply national policies to enterprises in a timely manner, others have set hidden rules and use the government's preferential policies to trade with enterprises, take bribes and turn normal interactions into power-for-money transactions. Such behaviors have damaged the fair and just market and business environments.

Political supervision, as part of the optimization of the business environment, can help promote the high-quality development of enterprises, especially private enterprises. The authorities therefore need to adhere to targeted supervision to address the difficulties of enterprises in different regions, industries and development phases. They should also make efforts to improve the efficiency and quality of approving business licenses, and cultivating business entities and government services, in order to boost the confidence of enterprises, as well as conduct targeted, follow-up and whole-process supervision to eliminate the difficulties created by some unscrupulous officials and build a healthy and vibrant business environment.

Since a good business environment means a good legal environment and political ecology, the authorities should promote governance following laws and regulations, and address the root causes of the issues.

There is also a need to establish a cordial relationship between the government and businesses to ensure officials promote the optimization of the business environment, and build and maintain a healthy political ecology to upgrade the business environment and transform the economy.

Since corruption undermines fairness and justice, and endangers healthy economic development, it is essential to eradicate corruption to help improve the market order and restore the market to a state where it should be. It is also necessary to take simultaneous, coordinated and comprehensive steps to ensure officials don't have the audacity, opportunity or desire to indulge in corruption.

A collusion between the government and businesses can damage the political ecology and economic development and, hence, it is essential to keep a close eye on corruption in areas with concentration of power, intensive capital and abundant resources, and resolutely investigate corruption in sectors such as infrastructure, public resources transactions, investment and financing platforms, and bidding.

More important, the government should penalize officials who have extorted (or are trying to extort) money from businesses or other entities, and strictly supervise policymaking, decision-making and business license approvals to prevent any interference in microeconomic activities. The government should also take measures to detect power-for-money transactions hidden behind market-oriented behaviors and punish those involved in new types of corruption, implement market-oriented reform and establish a long-term mechanism to optimize the business environment.

Since optimizing the business environment is a long-term and systematic project, enterprises, in the meanwhile, should adapt to China's development, increase their investment in key technology sectors and expand new markets in order to contribute to the high-quality development of the economy and advance Chinese modernization.

The author is deputy head of the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Office of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Commission of Supervision at the General Administration of Customs China. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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