Harbin, the capital city of China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province, has been advancing its business environment over the past year to attract investment and business registration.

Thanks to the government’s efforts on simplifying procedures and improving efficiency, the time required to start a business in Harbin has been reduced to around two hours – down from two working days in the past.

From establishing a construction project to its completion and acceptance, the approval time limit for the whole process has been reduced to 35 to 67 working days.

A total of 80 government service items can be handled with only one visit to a government service center. A total of 14,210 out of the 15,226 government services at the municipal, district or county levels can be handled online, with the online handling rate reaching 93.3 percent.

Harbin also launched China’s “Zhengwu Jianma” app, which brings convenience for citizens to inquire about government service matters and shortens processing times.

Harbin city ranked sixth in the online government service capacity assessment of 32 key cities organized by the General Office of the State Council in 2019.

Meanwhile, the city continues to promote the improvement of its social credit system. It announced credit legislation very early in China to supervise the work of administrative and public institutions.

Harbin’s municipal credit information sharing platform and "Credit China (Harbin, Heilongjiang)" have collected a total of 60.39 million pieces of credit information, creating optimum conditions for government services, inclusive finances and credit supervision.

In the seventh large-scale inspection by the State Council in 2020, Harbin’s work to build a social credit system was praised nationwide.