To Establish an Inter Government Department

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To Establish an Inter Government
Department Enterprise Credit Administration
System   Wang Ji Ping
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Ladies and Gentlemen,   First of all, my
colleagues and I would like to extend our
sincere sympathies to our friends from the
United States who are here with us today. The
recent terrorist disaster that occurred in the
United States resulted in grave casualties and
brought about tremendous losses to the United
States as well as the rest of the world.
Consequently, the global Internet economy headed
by American e-commerce also suffered a certain
level of temporary setback. The best way to
retaliate against terrorism is, of course, to
retain composure and insist on maintaining our
existing way of life. We are happy to see that
the American people are gradually recovering
from their grief and are restoring social order.
The convocation of this US-China e-Commerce
Comparative Project Symposium is a very good
example. For this reason and more, we sincerely
wish this symposium great success.
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All who are here at this symposium on e-commerce
in China and the United States are professional
experts in this field. I am here mainly as a
student and to learn. As a civil servant who has
been involved in administration management, I
would also like to take this opportunity to
share with you my experience and knowledge in
this respect.  For the past eight years, I have
been working at the Beijing Administration of
Industry and Commerce, the Beijing AIC. The
major responsibility of the Beijing AIC is to
supervise and manage those enterprises wishing
to enter into and engage in business. Not long
ago, I was transferred to the Beijing Local Tax
Bureau and in this new position, I am beginning
to gain knowledge in the Beijing city taxation
levy and administration system and also in the
banking and other departments. These
experiences have provided me with a multi-focal
perspective on the governmental aspect of
e-commerce in our country.
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There exists a significant disparity in the
development of e-commerce in China and the
United States. This disparity is a result of
the gap between the level of advancement between
our two countries in terms of information
technology and the development of traditional
industries as well as the difference in our
national laws and policies. Amongst the various
differences between China and the United States,
those between our laws and policies are
relatively more difficult to overcome. For
instance, a few years ago, Mr. Clinton put
forward the idea of the Internet being a
duty- free zone, a trading zone and a government
purchasing zone. This effectively encouraged
the development of e-commerce in the United
States. Meanwhile, our countrys official
stance on e-commerce is yet to be formulated.
The emergence of similar questions is not only
the result of a problem with understanding, it
also involves certain complicated historical and
practical issues.
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In summary, e-commerce, as a highly developed
means of trading, requires sufficient awareness
and vision in systematic management, close
integration with local customs, a comprehensive
market mechanism and a solid technological and
organizational foundation. At present, China is
still at a pivotal phase between a planned
economy and a market economy. Most of the
currently adopted and implemented economic
policies cannot satisfy the needs of the rapid
development of e-commerce. For example, our
countrys banking system has yet to develop a
comprehensive enterprise and personal credit
rating system. The Chinese society as a whole
has not yet entered into the credit-spending
era. These are all obstacles to the development
of e-commerce in our country.
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Consequently, Chinas solution for problems
regarding online enterprise identity
verification and enterprise credit evaluation
will definitely be different to those of the
United States. In the United States, such
problems will mostly be resolved via Americas
own strong market mechanism and the
establishment of specialized credit companies and
identity verification companies. However, the
market mechanism in our country is not yet
completely established. To establish such a
protection system in a short time requires the
support and involvement of the government.
Anyone wishing to succeed in the Chinese
e-commerce market must gain a deeper
understanding of the role the Chinese government
in this market.
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When I was with the Beijing AIC, Beijing AIC was
conducting research in electronicizing business
licenses and in enterprise credit management.
The main aim of the research was to issue
business licenses not in its current paper form
but in electronic form that can be transmitted
and verified online via the use of IC cards. In
addition, it was also planned that information
gathered by the Beijing AIC during business
license annual reviews as well as other
supervisory/ administrative procedures involving
trademarks, contracts, advertisements and
markets be shared via networking Through these
changes, the Beijing AIC hoped to prevent the
counterfeiting of business licenses and to
identify those entities which regularly violate
relevant laws and regulations. At the time, it
was also considered that such information be
made public on the Internet so that the general
public has access to the Beijing AICs
administrative records for each registered
enterprise and to improve general awareness in
identifying enterprises with bad records.
Certain obstacles were encountered in the course
of this research project, the main one being the
limited scope of application of the business
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license IC card. Many departments and companies
did not consider the business license IC card
the only electronic certificate to verify and
confirm an enterprises identity and related
information about the enterprise stored in these
IC cards is often insufficient. After joining
the local tax bureau, I found that the local tax
bureau is constructing its own information
system that will make online tax payment
possible. This system will also facilitate tax
reporting by enterprises, sort information on
enterprises with bad taxation records, and aid
in the supervision, control and administration
of the sources of taxation. However, because
this information system was not completely
integrated with the Beijing AIC system, real
time confirmation of identities of enterprises
was not possible. Because of this, the tax
bureaus strike against those entities that do
not pay their taxes is made
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less efficient and uncovering those entities that
do not register with the tax bureau and timely
update of information of entities that have
registered with the tax bureau is also made more
difficult. Due to my work with the local tax
bureau, I also came to understand that the
banking department is having similar problems.
On the one hand, it is continuing to confirm the
operational identity of enterprises in order to
develop its credit business and establish its
own credit rating standards and system.
Meanwhile, it also desperately needs the
administrative information held by other
government departments in order to better
evaluate the credit status of enterprises. Throug
h communications and discussions with various
people, I feel that a credit management system
that straddles across government departments is
urgently needed for e-commerce, online payment
and credit evaluation of enterprises in relation
to
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normal transactions. At present, a large amount
of credit information on enterprises are
dispersed amongst the information systems of a
number of government departments. This leads to
inefficient application and high maintenance
costs. This pool of information needs to be
sorted and shared. It is entirely possible that
the true and unique identity of enterprises be
grouped under a master heading of Business
Licenses under which individual departments can
then establish and provide various types of
administrative information so that such
information can be shared via the Internet, thus
facilitating the cooperation between departments
and solving the problem mentioned above.
Resolving issues relating to identity,
reputation and credit status of enterprises will
pave the way and establish the foundation for
e-commerce. With such a system in place, the
Beijing AIC can ensure an effective check on the
accurate and true identities of enterprises,
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thereby establishing a basic enterprise identity
database for the benefit of other government
departments. Taxation departments can in turn
ensure all legally registered enterprises become
registered taxpayers, increase the scope of tax
collection and improve the taxation departments
supervisory and administrative standards.
Moreover, banks can rely on the AIC and taxation
records of enterprises to evaluate the
operational status of these enterprises to
advance the development of the credit business.
Thereafter, we should make this information
available to the public via the Internet so that
all information pertaining to a particular
enterprise can be obtained by typing in the name
of the enterprise. This way, offending
enterprises will not only receive a one-time
penalty when convicted, they will also suffer
sustaining damage to their reputation. Through
this method, we can gradually establish a
complete enterprise credit administration
system. The establishment of such an
administration system will
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Finally, I sincerely thank the organizers of this
symposium for providing me with this rare
opportunity to gain more insight into new trends
in the development of e-commerce and once again,
I wish this symposium great success.   Thank you.
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compensate the inadequacy in the verification of
enterprise identity in e-commerce in China and
provide meaningful and reliable information to
commercial banks in establishing their own
enterprise credit database. Such a project
should first be experimented amongst the Beijing
AIC, Beijing Local Tax Bureau and the banking
department. Law enforcing departments such as
the Technical Supervision Bureau and Customs can
then progressively join the project, finally
making up a complete and comprehensive
administration system.  The above is an idea
that my colleagues and I have in relation to
improving the supervision and administration
standards and servicing the development of the
high technology industry in our capital. This
year, while pushing forward with e-commerce in
our city, the Beijing municipal government has
also put forward the idea of developing
electronic government services. Similar
proposals are being presented in many other
government departments. We hope to have the
opportunity to conduct more extensive
discussions with you regarding these issues.