By Yuan Dongming, Research Team on “Business Environment Improvement,” Enterprise Research Institute, DRC

Research Report, No.176, 2021 (Total 6241) 2021-6-29

Abstract: Invisible market access barriers need to be removed as they impact the effective implementation of China’s negative list system for market access. Apart from invisible barriers loomed up in the course of administrative approval, enterprises reveal that there are the following seven cases relating to invisible market barriers. 1. The market access threshold is too high and the requirements are irrational and unclear; 2. Some industries make approvals in disguised forms; 3. The market thresholds relating to government procurement and bidding projects are involved with too many preliminary review and approval procedures; 4. The public service areas in some regions are not fully open, even with various forms of monopolized operation; 5. The market access standards of the new economy areas lag behind, and different areas have quite different market access standards; 6. It is hard to make profits in some monopolized industries with relaxed market access; 7. Local protection still exists in some regions and areas. The existence of invisible market access barriers is inseparable from the facts that some reform measures are mismatched or are not put into effect and some local authorities have a weak awareness of fair competition without transforming their old governance concepts. In a bid to remove the invisible market access barriers, we need to establish corresponding working mechanism, promote the transformation of philosophy, system and method in a systematic manner, and eliminate the conditions for invisible access barriers at the source, so as to truly realize that market access standards would become clearly defined without allowing any invisible barriers to be there for market entry.

Keywords: business environment, invisible access, remove barriers