Recently, Shandong issued the Notice on Delivering Satisfying Results in Key Work of Reducing Costs in 2023. Consisting of eight parts and 22 measures, the document aims to slash the costs for enterprises in the real economy and promote the overall improvement of the economic operation.

Of them, three measures are focused on making preferential tax policies more accurate and targeted, i.e. implementing preferential tax policies, strengthening support in key areas, and carrying out regular governance of enterprise-related charges; five measures are focused on improving the quality and efficiency of finance serving the real economy, i.e. maintaining the steady growth of total loans, promoting the steady decline in loan interest rates, guiding the accurate distribution of financial resources, continuously optimizing financial services, and supporting MSMEs to reduce exchange rate hedging costs so as to reduce the financing costs for business entities, strengthen financial support for small and micro enterprises, and lower the hedging costs of enterprises.

Three measures are focused on continuously reducing institutional transaction costs, i.e. creating a fair market competition environment, continuously optimizing the access services of business entities, and standardizing bidding and government procurement systems. Moreover, the document also called for efforts to promote IPR pledge financing and implement discount interest and risk compensation policies for IPR pledge financing for MSMEs. Meanwhile, the pilot program of offering integrated public resource trading services will be conducted in nine cities along the Yellow River in Shandong to effectively reduce the institutional transaction costs of market entities.