A program launched by the Shanghai government on Monday invites business reporters to serve as observers and supervisors of Shanghai’s business environment.

As one of the key components of the newest 7.0 version of Shanghai’s action plan for a better business environment released earlier this year, the program makes use of reporters to advocate business-related policies and narrow the information gap between government and enterprises.

“This is an unprecedented attempt in the nation to make our reporters participate in the process of developing business-related policies,” said Gu Jun, director of the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission

Reporters can serve as a bridge for collecting the complaints and needs of enterprises, thus pushing related governmental departments to tackle the actual problems that arise, he said.

Various forms of surveys and investigations in terms of Shanghai’s business environment will also be conducted by the media, reflecting the real situation for future optimization.

The first batch of “media observers” for Shanghai’s business environment consists of around 50 journalists from national, city- and district-level media, including Shanghai Daily.

The first action plan for a better business environment was launched in 2018.

Shanghai set up 6,017 new foreign-invested enterprises in 2023, an increase of 38.3 percent over the same period in the previous year, with the actual use of foreign investment amounting to US$24.087 billion, an increase of 0.5 percent year on year, according to official data.