Document of
People's Government of Suzhou
No.2 Regulation of Suzhou Municipal Government in 2016
Notice of Suzhou Municipal Government
on the Issuance of
Determination and Regulation Measures of
Headquarters Enterprises of Suzhou
Municipal governments and district governments, the Administrative Commission of SIP, Suzhou National Hi-Tech District and Taicang Port; all municipal committees, offices and bureaus, and municipal institutions directly affiliated to Suzhou Municipal Government:
The 51st executive meeting of Suzhou Municipal Government has passed the Determination and Regulation Measures of Headquarters Enterprises of Suzhou through deliberation. Now, it is issued to you. Please implement with utmost earnestness.
People’s Government of Suzhou
June 2nd, 2016
(Public issuance)
Determination and Regulation Measures of
Headquarters Enterprises of Suzhou
Chapter One General Provisions
Article One This Measure is formulated with the view to implementing the Opinions on Several Policies for Accelerating the Development of Headquarters Economy (No.1 Regulation of Suzhou Municipal Government in 2016), encouraging and boosting headquarters economy.
Article Two The determination and regulation of headquarters enterprises shall observe the principle of openness, fairness and impartiality. The system of enterprises’ voluntary application, government review and public notification and dynamic appraisal is applied.
Chapter Two Standard of Determination
Article Three The headquarters enterprises referred to in this Measure are those corporate legal entities which are registered and operated within Suzhou city as well as performing management and service functions to their holding companies or branches. They are classified into comprehensive headquarters and functional headquarters.
(1) Comprehensive headquarters refer to those headquarters enterprises that enjoy strong overall competitiveness, perform the comprehensive management functions for their own enterprises beyond the scope of prefecture-level cities, such as business planning, operation decision-making, investment and financing, asset management, administrative and human resource management or overall planning of supply chain allocation, scientific research and allocation of manufacturing sites and resources, market segmentation and so on, which consist of group top headquarters and the authorized regional headquarters.
(2) Functional headquarters refer to those enterprises that are authorized by their parent enterprises(groups), registered within Suzhou city and mainly perform service functions of research and development, logistics, procurement, sales, accounting, finance, information processing or other supportive and shared services for the related companies within their own groups.
Article Four Other than nationally restricted and prohibited industries, the investors and economic natures of headquarters enterprises are free of limits. Both newly established enterprises and existing enterprises of Suzhou city can apply for the determination of headquarters enterprises.
Article Five Enterprises applying for the determination of comprehensive headquarters enterprises shall satisfy the following basic conditions:
(1) Enterprises registered within Suzhou city in its broad sense and eligible as independent legal entity, which perform integrated business accounting and honest operation by law;
(2) Enterprises complying with industrial development policies of Suzhou city;
(3) In principle, the number of branch agencies or companies by authorized management outside Suzhou city shall not be less than three, to which such candidate enterprises are obliged to perform single or multiple headquarters management and service function(s) described in Provision (1) of Article One.
Article Six Upon the satisfaction of Article Five of this Measure, enterprises of the following five categories can be directly determined as comprehensive headquarters enterprises:
(1) Regional headquarters of transnational companies that have been determined and filed for reference by the Ministry of Commerce or the Provincial Department of Commerce, namely the enterprises that satisfy the regulations for regional headquarters of transnational companies included in Provisions on Establishment of Investment Companies with Foreign Investment (No.22 Decree of Ministry of Commerce in 2004) or Notice of the General Office of Jiangsu Provincial Government Forwarding the Suggestions of Provincial Department of Commerce and Department of Finance for Encouraging Transnational Companies to Establish Regional Headquarters and Functional Organizations in Jiangsu Province ( No.79 issuance of General Office of Jiangsu Provincial Government in 2015 );
(2) Listed companies (except the NEEQ companies);
(3) Large enterprises(groups) under the leadership of divisions of the state and the central government of China;
(4) Headquarters of China or regional headquarters located in China of World Fortune 500 Companies coming out in the previous year;
(5) China's top 500 enterprises, domestic top 100 private enterprises and China’s top 100 chain enterprises released in the previous year by China Enterprise Confederation, China Enterprise Directors Association, All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and China Chain Store and Franchise Association.
Article Seven On the basis of satisfying Article Five, Enterprises not satisfying provisions of Article Six can apply for comprehensive headquarters enterprises as per the following categories:
(1) Modern agricultural headquarters enterprise
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 50 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than two million yuan.
(2) Modern headquarters enterprise of manufacturing industry
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over two billion yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than 30 million yuan.
(3) Headquarters enterprise of tourism industry
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 300 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than three million yuan.
(4) Headquarters enterprise of information service industry
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 50 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than three million yuan.
(5) Headquarters enterprise of commerce and trade service industry
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over one billion yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than ten million yuan.
(6) Modern logistics headquarters enterprise
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 100 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than two million yuan.
(7) Headquarters enterprise of science and technology service industry
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 50 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than two million yuan.
(8) Headquarters enterprise of intermediary service industry
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 50 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than thee million yuan.
(9) Headquarters enterprise of real estate industry
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over one billion yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than 200 million yuan.
(10) Headquarters enterprise of cultural creativity
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 50 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to over two million yuan.
(11) The policy of rewarding and determining headquarters enterprise of financial service industry will be formulated separately.
(12) Other headquarters enterprises
1. Operation revenue of previous year totaled over 50 million yuan;
2. The paid-up corporate tax within Suzhou city of previous year amounted to more than five million yuan.
Article Eight Enterprises applying for functional headquarters enterprise shall satisfy the following conditions:
(1) Enterprises registered within Suzhou city in its broad sense and eligible as independent legal entity, perform integrated business accounting and honest operation by law;
(2) Enterprises complying with industrial development policies of Suzhou city;
(3) Enterprises authorized to undertake single or multiple functions included in provision (2) of Article Three of head office in certain global scopes or international, domestic and overseas areas.
(4) In principle, the number of related companies or their branch agencies inside the parent company (group) for whom the candidate enterprises perform the exclusive functions included in provision (2) of Article Two shall not be less than three. Moreover, over 30% of corporate income of the candidate enterprise itself comes from the aforementioned related companies or their branch agencies.
Article Nine Based on the satisfaction of Article Eight, enterprises of the following four categories can be directly determined as functional headquarters enterprise:
(1) Functional organizations of transnational companies that have been determined and filed for reference by the Ministry of Commerce or the Provincial Department of Commerce, namely the enterprises that satisfy the regulations for functional organizations of transnational companies included in the Provisions on Establishment of Investment Companies with Foreign Investment (No.22 Decree of the Ministry of Commerce in 2004) or the Notice of the General Office of Jiangsu Provincial Government Forwarding the Suggestions of Provincial Department of Commerce and Department of Finance for Encouraging Transnational Companies to Establish Regional Headquarters and Functional Organizations in Jiangsu Province (No.79 issuance of General Office of Jiangsu Provincial Government in 2015);
(2) Large enterprises (groups) under the leadership of divisions of the state and the central government of China;
(3) Functional headquarters established in Suzhou of “World Fortune 500 Companies” coming out in the previous year;
(4) Functional headquarters, which are established in Suzhou, of China's top 500 enterprises, domestic top 100 private enterprises and China’s top 100 chain enterprises released in the previous year by China Enterprise Confederation, China Enterprise Directors Association, All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and China Chain Store and Franchise Association.
Article Ten Enterprises satisfying Article Eight but not Article Nine, whose operation revenue reached over 30 million Yuan in the previous year and paid-up tax into the treasury of Suzhou Municipality exceeded two million yuan can apply for the determination of functional headquarters enterprises.
Article Eleven For specific types of headquarters and enterprises of new operation types, or branch companies (institutions) which are not eligible to be independent legal entities but perform the functions of regional headquarters and practice unified business accounting and act as taxpaying bodies and make major contributions to local economic growth, one discussion on one issue can be applied in terms of the method for determination.
Chapter Three Determination Procedure
Article Twelve The determination of headquarters enterprises shall follow the procedure of document submission, preliminary examination, review, approval and certification.
(1) Document submission. Enterprises applying for headquarters enterprise determination shall submit the following documents to the competent departments in charge of headquarters economy of the municipality (county) or district in which such enterprises are located:
1. The application form for Suzhou headquarters enterprise determination signed by corporate legal representatives;
2. Business license of three certificates in one (or enterprise business license and tax registration certificate);
3. Qualification verification report and audit report for the previous year of the candidate enterprise issued by accounting firms (combined);
4. The existing enterprises applying for headquarters determination shall provide the tax certificates of their own for the previous two years issued by tax departments of the municipalities where such enterprises are located. Enterprises applying for determination of newly-established headquarters shall provide the tax certificate for the previous year of their own issued by the tax departments of the municipalities at which such candidate enterprises are situated;
5. List of investment holding enterprises or list of authorized companies providing management and services, attached with the copies of business license of three certificates in one (enterprise business license and tax registration certificate) and qualification verification report;
6. The description for the establishment of comprehensive headquarters or functional headquarters and the fulfillment of related functions signed by corporate legal representatives. Such descriptions cover the statements of the correlation between the enterprise and investment holding companies or authorized companies providing management and services, organizational structure, functional distribution, tax-paying methods, business income ratio and other issues as well as necessary commitments. In the event that the planned regional headquarters of transnational enterprises only manage or provide service to the related companies in China (trans-provincial areas), the similar headquarters enterprises established in other areas across the globe or other regions in China by the parent company shall be clearly stated;
7. In the event that candidate enterprises satisfy conditions for direct determination, related documents shall be submitted.
Among the aforementioned documents, the copies of all sorts of licenses, certificates and audit reports will be collected to verify the original copy, except that only the originals required by provision 1 and 6 will be collected.
(2) Preliminary examination. After the receipt of application documents for municipal (county-level), district competent departments in charge of headquarters economy, responsible departments related to finance, national tax and local tax will carry out verification for tax-paying status in the previous year in Suzhou Municipality and offer examination remarks. The competent departments in charge of headquarters economy will conduct preliminary examination according to the tax-paying verification findings and application documents. Remarks of preliminary examination will be issued once the enterprise is proven qualified and will be delivered to the Leading Group Office on Headquarters Economy Development of Suzhou (abbreviated as Headquarters Economy Office); when candidate enterprises fail the preliminary examination, written reply and explanations should be offered. Normally, preliminary examination will be completed within 15 workdays.
(3) Review. The documents of enterprises surviving preliminary examination will be checked by relevant municipal competent departments with the differentiation of industry or nature and after the preliminary remarks are offered, the municipal Headquarters Economy Office will work with the member units of the leading group to conduct reviews for survived enterprises after preliminary examination within 15 workdays. Based on the specifics of enterprises, reviews can take the forms of joint review, expert review, field investigation and other forms.
(4) Public notification. The list of survivals after review will be published on the website of Suzhou, China for seven days by municipal Headquarters Economy Office. When no disputes occur, the list will be submitted to the Leading Group Office on Headquarters Economy Development of Suzhou for the final review.
(5) Certification. Headquarters enterprises passing the final review of the Leading Group Office on Headquarters Economy Development of Suzhou will be certified in unified manner.