Document of Shanghai Municipal Reform Work Leading Group of Review and Approval Systems for Construction Projects

H.J.S.G. [2019] No.1

Circular of Shanghai Municipal Reform Work Leading Group of Review and Approval Systems for Construction Projects 

Regarding Printing and Issuance of the Overall Arrangements for Optimizing Business Environment of Dealing with Construction Permits in 2019 in Shanghai

To all District People’s Governments, commissions, offices and bureaus of the Municipal Government:

The Overall Arrangements for Optimizing Business Environment of Dealing with Construction Permits in 2019 in Shanghai has been consented by municipal government and forwarded to you now for your compliance and implementation.

Shanghai Municipal Reform Work Leading Group of

Review and Approval Systems for Construction Projects

February 11, 2019

Overall Arrangements for Optimizing Business Environment of Dealing with Construction Permits in 2019 in Shanghai

Business environment is an important soft power and core competitiveness of urban economic and social development, and dealing with construction permits is an essential indicator for comprehensive measurement of business environment. For deepening the implementation of the crucial deployment of the Central Party Committee and the State Council on further optimizing the business environment, according to the general requirements of the Municipal Committee and the Municipal Government, the work for optimizing the business environment of dealing with construction permits in 2019 is arranged as follows:

I. Goals of Work

Implementing the important guiding spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping for Shanghai, which is "aiming at the highest standard and the best level, optimizing government services and creating an international first-class business environment", we will take further optimizing business environment as a fundamental measure to deepen the reforms of “streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving regulation and services” and to promote the reform of the review and approval system of construction projects. With “no supine thinking, no change in goals, no lowered standards and no less strengths”, we will stick to take demands, problems and projects as orientation, optimizing review and approval as the main direction, reform and innovation as the core means, and the enterprise satisfaction as the evaluation criterion, to improve the ease of doing business and level of satisfaction. The specific objectives are:

First, keep up the high standards of reform, continue the efforts to increase the ranking in Doing Business. We will consolidate the effective results of the existing reform, form a series of case studies on whole process reform, and continue to significantly increase the score of dealing with construction permits in the World Bank report Doing Business 2020 by evidence of data and cases.

Second, keep up high-quality services, continue to promote the transformation of government administrative functions. We will continue to deepen the reform of review and approval system for construction projects, by means of “extend the services before review and approval initiated, provide in-time  and correction during the process, adopt supervision-based rewarding and punishment cross departments”, we will continue to transform the government functions from “focusing more on approval than administration” to “providing services beforehand, conducting oversight during and after the process”.

Third, carry out the implementation in a highly efficient way, continue to increase the sense of benefit and satisfaction of enterprises significantly. By measures of optimizing review and approval system, agent service, enhancing consultation and training, we will continue to proactively reply to companies’ concerns, to complete the advisory issues within time limits, and to constantly increase the sense of benefit and satisfaction of the market entities.

II. Main Tasks

We will actively keep up with the advanced economies in the world, with goals of “reducing procedures, time and costs, and quality improvement”, make the planning in a coordinated way and implement precise measures. We will take institutional establishment as core, precise services as support, mechanism improvement as safeguard, have policies to be optimized particularly to make up for the key missing points of indicators in last Doing Business report and promote the thorough implementation of the policies, in order to solve a number of real problems, the pains and difficulties currently troubling market entities.  

 (I) Work Hard to enhance institutional innovation, strive to make improvement.

1. Revise the policy documents on the reform of the final inspection of construction projects. We have issued Regulation on Integrated Final Inspection of Construction Projects in Shanghai and Circular on Further Simplifying Final Inspection for Small-scale Construction Projects in Shanghai. For general projects, we’ll implement measures of “one application form, one-stop application acceptance window, integrated final inspection, completion within time limit”，further transform the parallel final inspections carried out by multiple departments to integrated final inspection coordinated by one department; for small-scale projects with private investment, we’ll implement measures of “one application form, one-stop application acceptance window, simplified final inspection, completion within time limit”, on the premise of further strengthened oversight during the process and the “Four-Party Final Inspection” specifications, final inspection by fire department and filing of final inspection by construction administration department shall be eliminated, after the project passes the final inspection by planning and natural resources department, the owner company may directly go to process real estate registration with the opinions of final inspection. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-rural Development, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Fire Bureau)

2. Part of projects shall be exempt from requirement of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). We’ll further optimize the category-based list of EIA, revise and issue Types of Construction Project that are Excluded from Classified Management of Environmental Impact Assessment, projects with low environmental impact and controllable risks shall be exempt from EIA. (Responsible departments: Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment)

3. Improve the implementation measures of connection to water and sewage services reform. We’ll further optimize review and approval services of connection to water and sewage services, revise and issue relevant documents to optimize the procedure of connection to water and sewage services into two procedures, compress the time limits and allow the acceptance of application for installation to be processed simultaneously with other procedures during construction phase. (Responsible departments: Municipal Water Authority)

4. Improve quality supervision and management measures at the construction site. We’ll further improve quality supervision and management measures at the construction site, revise and issue relevant documents, explore to establish differentiated quality supervision system based on different project types and risk levels. For relevant quality supervision issues which were new in the Doing Business 2019, it’s clear that the first on-site supervision meeting shall be eliminated, differentiated supervision shall be carried out based on a project’s nature, scale, technical complexity of and credit status of construction-participated parties. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-rural Development)

5. Cancel the project registration of small-scale projects with private investment. Relying on the online municipal government portal, we will upgrade and improve the review and approval management system of construction projects, and strengthen the data sharing with the online review and approval supervision platform of investment projects. For small-scale private investment projects, the procedure of online project registration is eliminated, and data collection is realized through data sharing, so as to effectively improve the sense of benefit and satisfaction of enterprises. (Responsible departments: Municipal Big Data Center, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development)

6. Small-scale projects are exempt from construction cost of building civil defense facility at elsewhere. For construction projects with charged area less than 2000 square meters, we will carry out research to issue relevant documents in which it will be clear that construction cost of civil defense facility is eliminated. (Responsible departments: Municipal Civil Defense Office, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Finance Bureau)

7. Optimize the geological survey process of projects with private investment. For small-scale private investment projects with controllable risks, we will research to issue relevant documents in which it will be clear that the time for geological survey process is no longer than 7 calendar days. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau)

8. Further enhance the educational requirements of quality supervisor for construction site oversight. In addition to meeting the requirements of minimum working years and obtaining administrative law enforcement certificate granted by either municipal or district government specified in Article 8 of Regulations on Assessment of Construction Engineering Quality and Safety Supervision Agencies and Staff in Shanghai (H.J.Z.A. [2018] No. 213), quality supervisor is also required by the job requirements to have undergraduate degree or above.  (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development)

 (II) Make efforts to strengthen precise services, improve enterprises’ satisfaction

9. Improve and upgrade the function of review and approval management system for construction projects. Based on the online municipal government portal, we will set up one integrated online services platform which takes “review and approval management system for construction projects as portal and hub, each specialty management system of each department as basis and branch” to cover the whole process, further improve the functions of the system to optimize the existing modes like drawings review and online consultation, ameliorate new modes like integrated final inspection, connection to water and sewage and etc., and the procedure of project registration will be done through data sharing, in order to avoid enterprises filling out information again and again, we will try our best to “let the data better serve market entities and save their time and energy as much as possible”. For the matters of construction projects which are required to have review and approval and in the scope of reform, we will shut down each individual acceptance port of review and approval system of related administrative department, they will be integrated on construction projects review and approval management system to realize one-stop window acceptance, internal synchronization and data sharing. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Big Data Center，Municipal Water Authority)

10. Strengthen policy advisory services. We will further strengthen the advisory services for the new policies after the reform, improve various online and offline ways of advisory services, such as counter in the services hall, advisory hotline, Wechat network platform, etc. Enterprises can consult and get timely and effective feedback whenever they have questions such as what procedure should be dealt with, what review and approval process they should go through and any technical issues that they’re not certain about at any stage of the whole process. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Municipal Fire Bureau, Municipal Water Authority, Municipal Civil Defense Office， every District People’s Government, Administration Commissions of Particular Area)

11. Upgrade procedure guides and other relevant materials. In view of the 2.0 edition of the reform policy, we will revise and improve the supporting procedure guides, lists of application materials and forms for each review and approval stage. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Municipal Fire Bureau, Municipal Water Authority, Municipal Civil Defense Office, Municipal Landscaping and City Appearance Administration Bureau, Municipal Transportation Commission)

12. Organize multi-level and all-round training and heighten public awareness. We will strengthen the training by means of policy interpretation, thematic training, procedure guidance etc. We will organize thematic trainings based on different specialties and stages for project owners, government administrative departments, frontline counter staff and office staff of attracting investment in counties and towns. We will work hard to raise public awareness by pictorial guides, process diagrams and promotion videos, increase the readability of the policies for market entities to understand the policies and know how to deal with the process. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Municipal Fire Bureau, Municipal Water Authority, Municipal Civil Defense Office, every District People’s Government, Administration Commissions of Particular Area)

13. Strengthen communication with the World Bank team and industry experts. We will take it seriously the reception of the World Band advisory team and assessment team, demonstrate the overall reform effectiveness in Shanghai based on sufficient communication. We will organize periodic salons and symposiums to invite industry experts to come for exchange and communication, besides introduction of reform measures and effectiveness, we also welcome opinions and suggestions on optimization of business environment which will boost the reform. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Municipal Fire Bureau, Municipal Water Authority, Municipal Civil Defense Office, every District People’s Government, Administration Commissions of Particular Area)

14. Improve the communication mechanism with the enterprises. Taking improvement of the feelings and sense of benefit of enterprises as benchmark, we will further strengthen the survey and analysis of enterprise satisfaction, conduct timely assessment of the implementation of policies to ensure that the reform measures have been effectively implemented. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Municipal Fire Bureau, Municipal Water Authority, Municipal Civil Defense Office, every District People’s Government, Administration Commissions of Particular Area)

 (III) Make efforts to improve the working mechanism and continuously promote to form a joint force

15. Further improve the working mechanism of optimizing business environment and keep moving towards the goal. The leading department will further play the role in overall coordination, formalize and fix the mechanism of joint meetings, hold regular meetings to discuss progress, lay out  list of tasks phase by phase, and report on the completion of main tasks, so as to form a working mechanism for overall coordination and synergy among municipal and district levels, and to stress the implementation of the tasks. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Municipal Fire Bureau, Municipal Water Authority, Municipal Civil Defense Office, every District People’s Government, Administration Commissions of Particular Area)

16. Strengthen the supervision of the implementation of the reform policies to meet the World Bank benchmarks. We will take social satisfaction and enterprises’ sense of benefit as the key basis for the evaluation of reform effectiveness, by means of organizing focused evaluations and commissioning the third-party evaluation agencies, ensure 100% implementation of the reform measures and stress to solve particularly difficult issues. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, General Affairs Office of Municipal Committee of the CPC, Municipal Government General Affairs Office)

17. Prepare checkable and verifiable policy basis, reform cases and backstage data according to international standards. We will proactively get to know the projects and their progress, based on the actual circumstances, provide services in advance, actively cultivate projects that should follow reform policy 2.0 version throughout the whole process, get the backstage data ready for verification, and ensure that there are 50 or more construction projects that pass the integrated final inspection and get connection to water and sewage services on review and approval management system for construction projects. (Responsible departments: Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, Municipal Water Authority, Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, Municipal Fire Bureau, every District People’s Government, Administration Commissions of Particular Area)

III. Work Arrangements

Each responsible department should raise the level of thinking, clearly understand the division of tasks, strictly comply with the deadlines, and firmly promote reform work of business environment of dealing with construction permits to achieve results.

(I) Issuance of policies

Point in time: By early March 2019, each responsible department should have reform policies of business environment of dealing with construction permits to be issued and actively strive to implement the reform items of national administrative authority.

Relevant requirements: First, we need to improve the pertinence and effectiveness of policies. In response to the World Bank's Doing Business report and the problems reflected by communities and enterprises, each responsible department should issue a number of operational policy documents as soon as possible. The formulation of documents should focus on the persons or parties, design the policies for the whole process from the perspective of market entities, further highlight the readability, scenarios and friendliness of the policies. Second, we need to optimize the system. We will promote data collection and information sharing among different departments, set up interconnectivity in all procedures that a market entity needs to deal with, so as to achieve “one online platform for government services” for handling all administrative items in the whole process. Third, we need strengthen communication with national ministries and commissions. Each leading department should actively have communication with national ministries and commissions, deepen the researches on items of administrative authority and laws-and-regulations-involved items, actively take the relevant pilot reform tasks.

（II）Joint supervision

Point in time: Relevant departments need to cooperate for the reception of the World Bank Consulting Team in the early and middle of March for their inspection trip in Shanghai; organize enterprise-oriented surveys before March 30 focusing on the implementation of reform initiatives; commission third-party agencies to carry out static simulation evaluation in early April.

Relevant requirements: First, we need to make the timely correction. If a problem is identified, we need to act to correct, so as to ensure the thorough implementation of the reform measures. Second, we will establish strict accountability. With the goals of guarding the points that have been given in the past Doing Business reports and getting the expected points that we strive for, we will establish strict accountability management to ensure the thorough implementation of reform measures. Third, we need to enhance the standardization level of administrative services. Based on the results of supervision, we will further carry out guidance and training for communities to address inadequacies.

(III) Organize to be ready for evaluation

Point in time: In March and April, we will carry out intense policy advertising and trainings; From April to early May, we will organize self-check on policy implementation, and get ready for the evaluation including preparing data for verification by the World Bank and meetings on policy discussion.

Relevant requirements: First, we need to strengthen the policy advertising. We need to pay attention to the interpretation, advertising and training of newly issued policies and measures, make efforts to increase the awareness and reachability of the policies; second, we need to improve the persuasiveness of the data for verification. We need to ensure that all reform measures have been thoroughly implemented and form a batch of actual cases and data that can be verified. Based on the requirements on the data which should be comparable, checkable and graphic, we need to sort out policy caliber, typical cases and verifiable data, in order to increase the credibility and convincingness of the verifiable data, try our best to have detailed and solid preparation for the upcoming evaluation; third, we need to enhance the communication with the World Bank team. Focusing on the reform measures unrecognized by the World Bank last year and the reform measures issued this year, we will study on the communication plan to increase the credibility of the data for verification and strive for the recognition by the World Bank team.

(IV) Evaluation review

Point in time: In the second half of the year, based on the World Bank evaluation and national evaluation on business environment, we will carry out evaluation review of the business environment. In November, we will cooperate with the commissioned third-party evaluation agencies to carry out unified business environment evaluation in all districts.

Relevant requirements: we will form the reform experience of each department that related to dealing with construction permits indicators. It requires cases, data, measures and achievements to objectively reflect the excellent experience of the business environment reform work of the department. We will cooperate with the municipality to form a summary report on business environment reform and submit it to the national leading group of delegating powers, enhancing regulation and strengthening public services.

Appendix: Breakdown Table of Reform Tasks of Dealing with Construction Permits Indicators in 2019 in Shanghai