Economic Daily:

To our knowledge, the NDRC has guided 10 provinces, including Yunnan, Guangdong and Fujian, in conducting pilot evaluations of market access effectiveness. The opinions proposed conducting evaluations of market access effectiveness nationwide. Could you talk about the relevant considerations and details?

Wang Shancheng:

Thank you for your question. Market access is key to balancing an efficient market with an effective government. The purpose of conducting market access evaluations is twofold. First, it aims to enhance the government's governance capacity by assessing the implementation of the market access policies and encouraging local governments to perform their duties efficiently in accordance with the law. Second, it focuses on improving market entry efficiency for businesses. By evaluating the environment for market access in various regions, we can promptly remove barriers, ensuring that all kinds of business entities can enter the market efficiently and smoothly.

Since 2021, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have made important arrangements for establishing and implementing a market access effectiveness evaluation system. The NDRC has guided pilot evaluations in 10 provinces, including Fujian, Yunnan, Ningxia, Shanghai and Guangdong. After three years of exploration, these pilot regions have made significant progress in market access effectiveness evaluation. For example, Yunnan has evaluated the market access effectiveness of 16 prefectures (cities) and 129 counties (cities and districts), forming a provincial effectiveness index. Yunnan has actively promoted excellence through evaluation, and participants' scores have steadily improved, with positive feedback from business entities. The evaluation results have directly promoted adjustment and improvement in policies related to local tourism and reduced market access barriers. Anhui province has explored an evaluation model that considers both administrative bodies and business entities. The province has developed an indicator system tailored to the Yangtze River Delta region, and vigorously promoted "imperceptible" evaluation by constructing an information platform, improving access efficiency and ensuring the fairness of evaluation results. At present, the conditions for comprehensive performance evaluation are largely in place. A national general version of the index system has been developed, consisting of 18 indexes in five aspects, including the construction of a market access system, the removal of market access barriers, the implementation of access supervision, organizational mechanism guarantees, and the effectiveness of system implementation. A working model has been formed under the guidance of national ministries and commissions, with provincial (autonomous region, municipality) governments as evaluation subjects and municipal and county governments as evaluation objects, laying the foundation for the nationwide promotion of such evaluations.

Next, according to the arrangements made in the opinions, we will comprehensively carry out an evaluation of market access effectiveness. In terms of a timeline, we will further expand the scope of evaluation this year, and starting next year, we will aim to gradually achieve full coverage of market access effectiveness evaluations, making the evaluations a regular practice. Regarding evaluation indicators, the indicator system will consist of "common national indicators + specific regional indicators." The common national indicators will be uniformly formulated and published by the NDRC, while the region-specific indicators will be set by each locality based on their actual conditions to appropriately reflect local characteristics, thereby encouraging grassroots reform and innovation. As for the evaluation results, we will strictly implement relevant requirements. The results will primarily serve as a reference for localities in building market access systems, with a clear directive to avoid rankings and prevent any burden on localities or primary-level organizations in this regard. Through effectiveness evaluations, we aim to comprehensively reflect and scientifically assess the market access environment in various regions, thereby ensuring the solid implementation of market access system requirements and continuously improving the government's standardized and scientific management of market access. Thank you!