In order to deepen the reform of business systems and further promote facilitation of business registration, the Administration for Industry and Commerce of Guangzhou drafted the Interim Measures of Guangzhou for Electronic Business License Management (hereinafter referred to as the Measures), which has been made public to seek for public opinions. The Measures encourages use of electronic business licenses in the fields of social public services and e-business.

 

This Measures is applicable for application for electronic business licenses, issuing and use of such licenses as well as related management activities within the administrative region of Guangzhou.

 

In accordance with the introduction, there are two versions of electronic business licenses in Guangzhou: the public version and the private key version. The former refers to the electronic business license issued to a business organization already with paper business license issued by related registration authority. It is integrated into the unified identity authentication platform and released on website (www.gzaic.gov.cn) so that it can be used to verify the identity of the business organization and go through other governmental procedures and for the public to inquire about information about the business license of the business organization.

 

The private key version of electronic business licenses includes standard card and co-branded card with function for financial payment. Such electronic business licenses are issued by industrial and commercial administrations according to the application of the business organizations at their own will. They can be used for verification of identity of business organizations, electronic signature, information encryption and timestamp.

 

The Measures requires that the electronic business licenses shall be used in accordance with relevant national and local municipal regulations for identity authentication, authorization management and responsibility confirmation during activities related to electronic government services, such as on-line application for change of name of business organization, on-line application for business registration, on-line identity authentication, electronic signature and seal and on-line disclosure of business license.

 

The Measures also encourages the enterprises and public institutions in the banking, securities and insurance industries to provide on-line financial services and those in the archive management, accounting and audit industries to provide on-line social public services with electronic business licenses based on relevant regulations. It is worth mentioning that, it also encourages the use of electronic business licenses for establishment of on-line trading platforms, information service platforms and entertainment platforms and other business activities.

 

In fact, last November, Guangzhou has taken a lead nationwide to make a breakthrough in application of public version of electronic business licenses: enterprises already with public version of electronic business licenses do not need to show the paper business license when applying for opening or changing account or any other operations with any office of the branches of the Bank of China in Guangzhou. The Administration for Industry and Commerce of Guangzhou has input the information about the permit, examination and approval and industry access into the electronic business licenses and opened them to the banks to further promote the construction of the social credit system. 

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, February 13, 2017