People's Daily: Bring industry associations to the forefront

Adjusting the economic structure urgently requires enterprises to transform and upgrade. In recent years, governments at all levels have introduced many policy measures to promote enterprise transformation and upgrading, including setting up special funds for transformation and upgrading projects, selecting innovative demonstration enterprises and key demonstration projects for smart construction, issuing annual plans for key technological innovation projects, and implementing plans for intelligent transformation projects. Although these policy measures have played a certain leading role in comprehensive evaluation, overall they lack precision, efficiency, and coverage.

The reason for this is that the government finds it difficult to truly understand the real development status and needs of enterprises, and it is also difficult to accurately grasp market changes. Using administrative methods to "guide experts from outside" not only wastes administrative resources and easily breeds corruption, but also may undermine the development environment of fair competition among enterprises.

Industry associations and chambers of commerce are the organizations of peer enterprises themselves, which can deeply and sensitively perceive the survival status, existing problems, potential dangers, and development prospects of the industry they are in. They are very familiar with the management level, technical reserves, and core competitiveness of different enterprises in the industry. But in reality, it is often excluded from the institutional design that promotes enterprise transformation and upgrading, making it difficult to leverage its unique advantages.

In guiding the process of participating in enterprise transformation and upgrading, industry associations and chambers of commerce should be brought to the forefront, and the government should encourage these organizations to play a leading role and regulate their organizational behavior. Therefore, it is recommended to:

Gradually transfer the administrative actions of evaluating or influencing the development direction of enterprises by the government to industry associations and chambers of commerce. The key to transforming government functions is to entrust 'market affairs to the market'. Currently, it is possible to consider selecting some regions with good economic development foundations for pilot projects. Transfer the application, evaluation, and distribution of government arranged transformation and upgrading funds and other enterprise related funding projects, as well as various levels and types of enterprise evaluation and reward work, enterprise evaluation, product evaluation, certification and other work to relevant industry associations and chambers of commerce for implementation. The government should do a good job in supervision and regulation. When formulating key technological innovation plans, intelligent transformation project plans, and other plans for enterprise transformation and upgrading, methods such as commissioned research or purchasing services can be used. Industry associations and chambers of commerce can draft the plan draft, which will be confirmed by relevant government departments before being promulgated and implemented. In some areas where conditions are met, industry associations can also be granted certain enforcement powers to regulate the behavior of enterprises in the industry that violate industry regulations.

Carefully design and improve the evaluation mechanism of industry associations and chambers of commerce. Firstly, conduct an inventory of industry associations and chambers of commerce at all levels and types across the country. Secondly, based on the inventory results, evaluate industry associations and chambers of commerce, develop a directory of government credit industry associations and chambers of commerce for a certain period of time, and publicize the credit standards and credit results to the society. Thirdly, design specific work processes, formulate operable laws, regulations, and policy measures, maintain effective flow of credit industry associations, chambers of commerce, or third-party intermediary organizations, and promote the healthy development of industry associations and chambers of commerce by granting credit at different time stages, granting credit to different social organizations simultaneously, and encouraging market competition among intermediary organizations. After years of effort, through market competition and government cultivation, we strive to rely on industry associations and chambers of commerce to establish a "Standard&Poor's" social organization within the industry, provide professional services recognized by the whole society, and establish an internationally recognized industry evaluation brand.

Establish credit evaluation, information confidentiality, and dishonesty punishment mechanisms for industry associations and chambers of commerce, and strengthen government supervision and management of industry associations and chambers of commerce. The government should sign confidentiality agreements when formulating industry policies based on data information provided by industry associations and chambers of commerce. Once industry associations or chambers of commerce engage in dishonest, fraudulent, or confidential behavior, causing losses to the government and society, disciplinary mechanisms should be activated. In addition to the corresponding legal procedures, it is possible to consider including industry associations, chambers of commerce, or enterprises in the government's blacklist of dishonest individuals, including responsible personnel in the blacklist of dishonest individuals, and making it public to the society, so that dishonest individuals can pay the price for their actions.

Information source: Hong Huimin, author of People's Daily, is a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference