The State Council issued the "Work Plan for Reducing Costs of Enterprises in the Real Economy"

The "Plan" clarifies: Cost reduction work should strive to reasonably and effectively reduce corporate tax burdens, financing costs, institutional transaction costs, energy costs, logistics costs, etc., and reasonably control the rise in labor costs; in about three years, the comprehensive costs of real economy enterprises will be reasonably reduced, profitability will be significantly enhanced, and industrial competitiveness will be further improved.

The "Plan" requires: Reasonably reduce corporate tax burdens. We will comprehensively launch the pilot program of replacing business tax with VAT to ensure that the tax burden of all industries is reduced but not increased.

The "Plan" also requires: Effectively reduce corporate financing costs. Maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity and create a suitable monetary and financial environment; steadily promote the establishment of private banks and develop small and medium-sized financial institutions; vigorously develop equity financing and reasonably expand the scale of the bond market; guide enterprises to use overseas low-cost funds and increase the proportion of local currency settlement of enterprise cross-border trade.

Reasonably reduce corporate tax burden

Goal: Comprehensively launch the pilot program of replacing business tax with value-added tax, with an annual tax reduction of more than 500 billion yuan. Clean up and regulate enterprise-related government funds and administrative fees.

1. Comprehensively launch the pilot program of replacing business tax with VAT to ensure that the tax burden of all industries is reduced but not increased. The scope of the pilot program for replacing business tax with value-added tax will be expanded to the construction industry, real estate industry, finance industry, and life service industry, and the value-added tax included in the new real estate of all enterprises will be included in the scope of deduction.

2. Implement the super deduction policy for research and development expenses, and revise and improve the catalog of tax incentives for energy-saving and environmentally friendly special equipment. Implement the super deduction policy for R&D expenses. Study the inclusion of new materials and key components into the implementation scope of the first batch of applied insurance premium compensation mechanisms.

3. Expand the scope of exemption from administrative fees, clean up and standardize enterprise-related fees. Expand the exemption scope of 18 administrative fees such as domestic plant quarantine fees and public measurement standard certificate fees from small and micro enterprises to all enterprises and individuals.

4. Cancel the reduction or exemption of a number of government funds and expand the scope of exemptions for small and micro enterprises. Government funds set up illegally by local governments such as gas and fuel processing fees for large industrial users will be cancelled.

Effectively reduce corporate financing costs

Goal: Gradually reduce corporate loan and bond issuance interest burden levels, and reasonably reduce the proportion of financing intermediate costs in corporate financing costs.

1. Maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity and create a suitable monetary and financial environment. Through differential reserve ratio, re-lending, re-discount and other policies, banking financial institutions will be guided to increase credit support for weak links and key areas such as small and micro enterprises and "agriculture, rural areas and farmers".

2. Reduce the costs of intermediate financing links and increase financing guarantees. Improve the financing mechanism of credit funds to the real economy, reduce the cost of intermediate links in loans, and strictly prohibit "loan-to-deposit", "deposit-loan linking" and other disguised increases in interest rates.

3. Improve the assessment system and regulatory indicators of commercial banks, and increase the intensity of disposal of non-performing assets. Comprehensively consider assessment factors such as profitability, operating growth, asset quality, capital adequacy ratio, etc., appropriately increase risk tolerance, and implement risk tolerance requirements for small and micro enterprise loans.

4. Steadyly promote the establishment of private banks and develop small and medium-sized financial institutions. Promote the preparation for the establishment of approved private banks and guide them to actively carry out business.

5. Vigorously develop equity financing and reasonably expand the scale of the bond market. Improve the equity financing function of the stock exchange market, standardize the development of the National Small and Medium Enterprises Share Transfer System ("New Third Board"), and standardize the development of regional equity markets and private equity investment funds.

6. Guide enterprises to use overseas low-cost funds to increase the proportion of local currency settlement in cross-border trade. Promote the reform of the registration system for foreign debt issuance by enterprises, expand the scope of pilot macro-prudential management of full-scale cross-border financing, further simplify procedures, reasonably expand the scale of foreign debt issuance by enterprises, and relax restrictions on capital return and foreign exchange settlement.

Focus on reducing institutional transaction costs

Goal: To further improve the business environment, create convenient conditions for enterprise establishment and production and operation, significantly reduce pre-administrative intermediary service matters for administrative approval, and significantly enhance the service capabilities of government and social intermediary agencies.

1. Break geographical segmentation and industry monopoly, and strengthen the construction of a fair competition market environment. We will clean up and abolish the restrictive regulations formulated by local governments that affect the formation of a unified market, and accelerate the liberalization of competitive aspects of monopolized industries.

2. Deepen the reform of “delegating power, delegating power, delegating power, delegating power, delegating power, regulating power and optimizing services” to create a better business environment for enterprises. Promote the reform of the administrative approval system and supervision system, optimize the administrative approval process, focus on canceling and decentralizing administrative approval items in the production and operation field, merge certificates and qualifications with the same or similar management objects and management matters, and implement joint approval.

3. Accelerate the construction of the social credit system and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights. Carry out joint incentives for trustworthiness and joint punishment for dishonesty, implement preferential and convenient measures for trustworthy enterprises in the fields of administrative management, public services, market transactions, investment and financing, and strictly restrict and restrict dishonest enterprises in accordance with the law.

4. Improve the level of trade facilitation and reasonably reduce service charging standards. Comprehensively promote the "single window" for international trade, promote information exchange, mutual recognition of supervision, and mutual assistance in law enforcement between relevant departments of port management, reduce the inspection rate of export commodities for companies with good credit records, and reduce the customs clearance costs of corporate goods.

5. Accelerate the divestment of social functions of state-owned enterprises and solve historical problems to reduce the burden on enterprises. Establish a mechanism for the government and state-owned enterprises to reasonably share costs, adhere to classified guidance and step-by-step implementation, raise funds through multiple channels, and accelerate the divestment of state-owned enterprises' social functions.

Reasonably reduce corporate labor costs

Goal: Maintain reasonable growth in wage levels, and reasonably reduce the proportion of corporate "five insurances and one housing fund" contributions to total wages.

1. Reduce the proportion of corporate social security contributions and take comprehensive measures to supplement the funding gap. Starting from May 1, 2016, for provinces where the unit payment ratio of the basic pension insurance for enterprise employees exceeds 20%, the unit payment ratio will be reduced to 20%. For provinces where the unit payment ratio is 20% and the cumulative balance of the basic pension insurance fund for enterprise employees at the end of 2015 can be paid for more than 9 months, the unit payment ratio can be reduced in stages to 19%; the total unemployment insurance rate will be reduced in stages to 1% - 1.5%, of which the individual rate shall not exceed 0.5%.

2. Improve the housing provident fund system, standardize and appropriately reduce the proportion of corporate housing provident fund deposits in stages. Any housing provident fund payment ratio higher than 12% will be subject to standard adjustments and shall not exceed 12%.

3. Improve the minimum wage adjustment mechanism and improve the labor market system. Make overall plans and take into account the affordability of enterprises and the protection of workers' rights and interests in minimum labor remuneration, and guide various localities to reasonably determine the adjustment range and frequency of minimum wage standards. Promote the reform of the household registration system and achieve full coverage of the residence permit system.

Further reduce the cost of energy and land use for enterprises

Goal: The degree of marketization of enterprise electricity and gas pricing mechanisms has been significantly improved, and the prices of industrial and commercial electricity and industrial gas have been reasonably reduced.

1. Accelerate the reform of the energy sector and liberalize competitive prices. Accelerate market-oriented reforms in electric power, oil, natural gas and other fields. Improve the grid connection mechanism for new energy power generation such as photovoltaic and wind power. In 2017, price controls in competitive areas and links will be basically liberalized.

2. Accelerate the reform of the electric power system and reasonably reduce the cost of electricity consumption for enterprises. Accelerate the implementation of pilot reform of electricity transmission and distribution prices.

3. Improve the land supply system and reduce the cost of land use for enterprises. Actively promote long-term leasing of industrial land, leasing first and then transferring, and leasing and leasing combined supply. Users of industrial land can pay the land transfer price in installments according to the contract within the specified period, reducing the cost of land use for industrial enterprises. Ensure the supply of land for the logistics industry and determine the volume ratio of logistics land scientifically and rationally.

Significantly reduce corporate logistics costs

Goal: The proportion of total social logistics costs in total social logistics will be reduced by about 0.5 percentage points from the current 4.9%, and the logistics expense rate of industrial and commercial enterprises will be reduced by about 1 percentage point from 8.3%.

1. Improve the development environment of the logistics industry and vigorously develop new transportation formats. Improve the modern logistics standard system, strengthen the implementation of logistics standards, and promote the coordinated development of logistics, manufacturing and other industries.

2. Reasonably determine road transportation toll standards, standardize highway toll management and supervise law enforcement. Revise the "Toll Highway Management Regulations" as soon as possible, scientifically and rationally determine highway toll standards, and gradually and orderly cancel tolls for government loan repayment of secondary highways.

3. Standardize airport, railway and port charging items and clean up unreasonable service charges. Comprehensively clean up operational charging items at airports, railways, ports and terminals.

Improve the efficiency of corporate capital turnover

1. Promote the securitization of operating assets in the real economy and carry out investment-loan linkage pilot projects to support technological innovation and entrepreneurial enterprises. Encourage real economy enterprises to securitize qualified operating assets, or revitalize existing resources through financial leasing and financial leasing.

2. Support the capital turnover of key enterprises and raise funds from multiple parties to pay off project arrears. Encourage local governments to strengthen coordination, support key enterprises in raising working capital, and prevent the risk transmission of corporate capital chain breaks.

3. Clean up and standardize deposits in the field of project construction to reduce capital occupation.

4. Strengthen fund settlement and resolve corporate debt chain risks. Encourage enterprises to strengthen the management of current accounts, guide them to speed up payments, and reduce the debt burden of the whole society.

Encourage and guide enterprises to tap their internal potential

1. Guide enterprise management innovation and lean production, and use information technology to reduce costs.

2. Strengthen the promotion of advanced technologies and encourage enterprises to strengthen target cost management.