The Dream Factory of China

The anti-epidemic efforts being taken by Qianhai Cooperation Zone Authority and Qianhai Tax Service were introduced at a video conference at the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation Center yesterday afternoon, attracting local enterprises and financial institutions such as the Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank and WeBank.

The officials also answered questions from representatives of the companies at the conference.

The Qianhai authority has given over 330,000 face masks to enterprises and waived 26 million yuan (US$3.73 million) in office rent for more than 300 companies and 9.42 million yuan in home rent for talents living in the area’s low-rent housing, the video conference heard.

The Qianhai authority has also offered 115 million yuan in subsidies to enterprises headquartered in Qianhai, such as SF Express, Yuehai Global Supply Chain and East Top.

Thanks to the epidemic prevention efforts, 75.6 percent of Qianhai enterprises, including all of the enterprises above a designated size, headquarters and financial companies, have resumed work as of March 9.

Qianhai Tax Service has adopted a series of facilitation measures for enterprises in response to the epidemic outbreak. Chen Weizhong, director of the service, said at the video conference that taxpayers are encouraged to use the online tax services and have their tax paper materials delivered to them by post. The approval time for services such as VAT data verification and invoice application has been shortened.

According to Chen, 95 percent of the tax services were handled online as of March 6.

Chen said information on favorable tax policies is available on the tax service’s public WeChat account. Staff have also been dispatched to answer inquiries for taxpayers.

He said the tax authority will also provide more personalized services to address the needs of taxpayers.

Representatives of 10 enterprises attending the video conference raised questions on the applicability of related policies and application procedures, and their needs were addressed by the related authority.

Zhong Aimei, a representative of China Fuel Supply Chain Management (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. at the conference, said that they were impressed by the quick responses by the authorities and the timely, favorable policies formulated to boost their confidence in business operations.