Chinese businesses and joint ventures in Shanghai can now send annual audit reports through the Internet to the Shanghai Bureau for Industry and Commerce, freeing them from the burden of heavy paperwork.
The city is also setting up a system that takes annual audit reports from wholly foreign-funded enterprises. It is expected to be set up for all wholly foreign-funded enterprises by January 2003.
More than 1,880 Chinese companies and joint ventures have turned in an e-version of their annual audit reports to www.sgs.gov.cn, a website created by the bureau and the Shanghai Municipal Informatization Office.
Gu Renda, the bureau's vice-director, said the project kicked off early last year but did not become fully operational until this January.
Gu said this has greatly improved the working efficiency of both local companies and the bureau.
Gao Qinghua, vice-director of the team in charge of building the system, said that local enterprises used to have to visit the office of the bureau at least four times a year before the adoption of the system, but they now need to come only once a year.
In addition, the website offers a column of answers to questions. Bureau officials will answer all of the questions within three days of their Internet posting, said Gu.
(China Daily March 1, 2002)