Photo: cnsphoto
Chinese first-tier mainland cities still lag behind some international metropolises in business environment with their noteworthy shortcomings in legal security, according to a latest research report.
The research, based on 20 international metropolises, showed that Chinese first-tier cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen lag far behind some other acknowledged international metropolises in the legal security of doing business, given that efficient and reliable legal security is one of the salient features of the global advanced urban business climate.
The research was conducted by Shanghai Development Strategy Research Institute on 20 acknowledged international metropolises including New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Frankfurt and Dubai.
The top five metropolises for business environment are New York, Tokyo, Singapore, London and Hong Kong, while Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen ranked 10th, 12th and 14th, respectively.
Based on seven first-level indicators, 23 second-level indicators and 41 third-level indicators, the research demonstrated Chinese cities' strengths and weaknesses, putting forward constructive suggestions on how to foster their strengths and circumvent weaknesses.
According to the report, the Chinese cities tied in 13th place on the ranking of legal environment, lagging far behind Singapore (No.1), Tokyo (No.2), London (No.3) and even China's Hong Kong (No.8).
In terms of legal security, Shanghai outperforms other metropolises in the indicator of contract execution. The city has made great efforts to reform its case-filing registration system, promote judicial openness and construct the informatization of court, which has greatly improved the quality of the judicial process.
However, the three mainland metropolises have obvious shortcomings in the other two indicators: intellectual property protection and bankruptcy proceedings.
The three cities tied for 13th place in intellectual property protection. Compared with top global cities such as Singapore, Tokyo and London, the three cities' interpretation of intellectual property laws is fragmented, their laws are not synchronous with international standards, and the market access criteria and commercialization level of intellectual property are low.
Besides, the three cities tied for 15th place in bankruptcy proceedings with their high cost and low efficiency.
For example, in Shanghai, it takes an average of 1.7 years to proceed with bankruptcy proceedings, three times the duration in Tokyo, while its cost of bankruptcy is 5.5 times that of Singapore and even higher than the average level of the Asia-Pacific region.
The report suggested to construct a comprehensive service platform, improve the judicial mechanism, strengthen protection of intellectual property rights, as well as to improve the quality and efficiency of bankruptcy handling by improving the funds system and simplifying bankruptcy proceedings.