Regional integration sees 761M credit records shared

Over 761 million corporate credit data records are now shared across Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, marking significant progress in regulatory integration during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

The announcement, made Wednesday at a press conference on the region's coordinated development, highlights a shift toward a unified market environment covering more than 14 million enterprises and individual businesses.

One of the most significant reforms is the digitalization of cross-provincial business relocations. Under new cooperation agreements, companies moving within the region can now complete the entire relocation process online.

Previously, business owners had to submit physical documents to both their origin and destination authorities and wait for the manual transfer of paper files. The new "single window" system allows simultaneous reviews and time-bound completion, eliminating the need for physical travel and setting a new national standard for administrative efficiency.

Regional integration extends to market oversight and anti-monopoly efforts. Since August 2022, Beijing has been authorized by the State Administration for Market Regulation to conduct anti-monopoly reviews for certain merger and acquisition cases across eight northern provincial-level regions, including Tianjin and Hebei, handling 83 cases to date.

In December 2023, the three regions jointly issued guidelines to harmonize fair competition review standards. Since 2021, 255 policy measures have been reviewed to break down administrative market barriers.

In areas such as public transport and environmental protection, 52 new collaborative regional standards have been issued since 2021, covering transportation, public health and market regulation. A total of 6,573 standards are now shared across the region, supporting the decentralization of Beijing's non-capital functions.

The three regions have jointly developed 33 technical specifications for measurement standards and shared 413 others, supporting sectors such as high-tech manufacturing, energy and health care, as well as environmental protection. This collaborative model has been expanded to north China, with 13 regional specifications developed.

Beyond administrative efficiency, authorities are using data interconnectivity to enhance consumer safety. Officials can now use the 761 million shared credit data records and a unified social credit code database for identity verification and security checks.