Individual industrial and commercial businesses are the "capillaries" of China's industrial chain supply chain and the "nerve endings" of the market, playing an important role in stabilizing growth, promoting employment, and benefiting people's lives. On October 25, The State Council officially issued the Regulations on Promoting the Development of Individual Industrial and Commercial Households (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations"). The regulations will take effect on November 1, 2022.

"Since the outbreak of the epidemic, individual businesses have been affected to varying degrees, and the introduction of the regulations is conducive to encouraging, supporting and guiding the sustainable and healthy development of the individual economy, safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of individual businesses and maintaining stability, and expanding urban and rural employment." Experts said that the introduction of the Regulations will help solve the problem of "urgent difficulties and worries" of individual industrial and commercial households, so that individual industrial and commercial households "light" forward, reflecting China's unwavering determination to encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public economy.

Individual business is an important part of China's market, is the Chinese characteristics of the main market. By the end of September 2022, there were 111 million registered individual businesses nationwide, accounting for two-thirds of China's total market entities and creating nearly 300 million jobs.

What is the significance of the introduction of the Ordinance? The "Regulations" issued this time have a total of 39 articles, from registration, accurate help, business sites, finance, taxation and other aspects of individual industrial and commercial households to carry out item-by-item provisions. On October 25, the General Administration of Market Supervision interpreted the Regulations, saying that the introduction of the regulations summarized and solidified a series of policy measures and experience practices to promote the development of individual industrial and commercial enterprises, which is innovative and operable, and is conducive to stabilizing expectations and enhancing confidence.

The State Administration of Market Supervision said that in this special period, the formulation and introduction of an administrative regulation specifically to promote the development of individual industrial and commercial enterprises will help stabilize market expectations at the institutional level and provide a good legal environment for the development of individual industrial and commercial enterprises. The Regulations further clarify the legal status of individual industrial and commercial enterprises, coordinate development and security, rescue and cultivation, vitality and order, clarify the responsibilities and tasks of various departments and regions in promoting the development of individual industrial and commercial enterprises, propose specific measures to help in various fields, and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of individual industrial and commercial enterprises.

At present, China's market entities are divided into three types, namely, enterprises, individual industrial and commercial businesses and farmers' specialized cooperatives. Each of these three types of market entities has a "principal law" that establishes its legal status and supports the promotion of development. Compared with the original Regulations on Promoting the Development of Individual Industrial and Commercial Households, the legislative purpose, main content and article structure have all undergone fundamental changes, transforming from a specialized regulation on registration management to a comprehensive regulation on promoting development.

"The introduction of the Regulations is like 'timely rain', which puts forward more specific and precise measures to help individual industrial and commercial enterprises solve difficulties, so that individual industrial and commercial enterprises can get help in entrepreneurship and innovation, improve business efficiency, and further activate the vitality of market players, stimulate employment, optimize the business environment, and enhance market expectations and confidence." Li Zhijian, vice chairman of Guangdong Federation of Social Sciences and chairman of Guangdong Asia-Pacific Innovation Economic Research Institute, said.

"After the release and implementation of the Regulations, people's governments at all levels will also introduce corresponding supporting policies." The implementation of a series of policies will release policy dividends in multiple directions for the vast number of individual industrial and commercial households, reflecting our firm determination to unswervingly encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector of the economy." Wang Kang, a lawyer from Beijing Huarang Law Firm, believes that in the future, individual industrial and commercial households are expected to rent more suitable business places with cheaper rents and obtain higher operating loans at lower interest rates.

After the release of the Regulations, Li Zhijian paid attention to the proposed "strengthening the monitoring and analysis of the development status of individual industrial and commercial enterprises" and "strengthening the collection, sharing and application of development information of individual industrial and commercial enterprises." He believes that this can help the government regulatory authorities more quickly and comprehensively understand and supervise the development and needs of individual industrial and commercial enterprises, promote the transformation of individual enterprises, expand the market and development space for individual industrial and commercial enterprises and enhance market competitiveness.

In addition, he was also concerned that the Regulations proposed to help individual industrial and commercial households reduce costs, increase capital and increase efficiency through measures such as increasing the supply of business premises, facilitating loan financing, and promoting digital transformation. "The regulations pay more attention to improving the development quality of individual industrial and commercial enterprises, and provide support for individual industrial and commercial enterprises to obtain better social security, skills training, entrepreneurship and innovation environment."

Wang Kang is concerned about the protection of intellectual property rights of individual industrial and commercial enterprises in the regulations. "In real life, some small and beautiful individual industrial and commercial businesses have accumulated high visibility through long-term operation and formed a good brand effect, but due to the lack of awareness of intellectual property protection, their names, trademarks, patents, trade secrets and so on have been registered or infringed by others. The Regulations have made clear provisions to strengthen the protection of the rights of individual industrial and commercial enterprises such as brand names, trademarks, patents and trade secrets."

As a member of many individual industrial and commercial enterprises, Chen Tim Ji fish skin has suffered from the plight of time-honored trademarks being malicious registration, so its third generation successor Chen Yinghua is also concerned about the measure. "It took us more than three years to successfully get the trademark back, and I hope the majority of individual businesses can pay attention to trademark protection."

Years of hard work in the catering industry, Chen Yinghua also felt the "warmth" and "flexibility" of the Regulations. "Business has declined and capital flow has decreased during the epidemic, and the support of loans and other financial products proposed by the regulations can help us better weather the storm."

In recent years, Guangdong has strengthened policy supply, increased capital and financing support, continued tax and fee reduction, and provided precise services in promoting the development of individual industrial and commercial enterprises, and the integrated effect has gradually emerged. In September this year, Guangdong held the first Individual industrial and commercial Service Month of "Delivering services to Promote Development", providing free quality and technical assistance services for no less than 5,000 small and medium-sized enterprises and individual industrial and commercial enterprises, and carrying out the "thousands of enterprises and millions of square" help action. At present, the number of individual businesses in Guangdong exceeds 8.3 million. From January to August this year, there were 1 million newly registered individual businesses in the province, maintaining a steady growth trend.

To promote the development of individual industrial and commercial enterprises to achieve higher quality, experts also put forward relevant suggestions. Wang Kang pointed out that at present, most individual industrial and commercial businesses still have problems such as small scale of operation, weak ability to resist risks, and weak awareness of compliance. It is suggested to guide individual industrial and commercial business operators to transfer and share the risks that may be encountered in the course of operation by taking out commercial insurance. "In addition, administrative organs or industry associations can guide individual industrial and commercial operators to raise their awareness of compliance in the process of operation and establish the concept of long-term operation, so as to avoid violations, violations or even suspected crimes due to the pursuit of short-term interests." 'he said.

Li Zhijian suggested that Guangdong's market economy is developed and there are many emerging business forms, and further research can be done on policy support for "new self-employed" in industry norms, skill training, rights and interests protection, and social security system construction to help the high-quality development of new economy and new business forms.