Li Chun’e, born in 1985, established a company named “Specialties in Yichang, China”, promoting Yichang’s agricultural products in the market greatly. Every second she gets five business orders. Luo Xiaodong and his partners are the first in Yichang to spend five years researching unmanned plane successfully. Both Li and Luo are the “grassroots” representatives of entrepreneurs.

Where there are platforms, there are entrepreneurs. The reporter found that good environment and supportive policy are the prior conditions to be taken into consideration by those entrepreneurs. In order to help college graduates, the High Tech Zone and the Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau established the first entrepreneurship business center which consists of zero-cost entrepreneurship “College Graduates’ Network Entrepreneurship Center”. The center offered 500 square meters space as business sites. Students who are in this center are free to rent the sites and fundamental office instructions for three years. Now there are 39 students in the center, who are specialized in different areas such as video production, online game and international E-commerce.

The High Tech Zone worked out supportive policies to solve difficulties for entrepreneurs. For instance, the risks of loans are to be burdened by three parties: the government, the insurance company and the bank. Also the District supports the innovative developing company, innovative company, and model innovative companies in ten aspects such as technology projects, financing, innovation platform, technological achievement transformation and talents building. Now there are 17 companies in construction. The total planning area is 1.1 million square meters and more than half of it is available now. And it contains 400 companies. Yichang is the first one in Hubei Province to make a series of policy reforms and services innovation: apply business license by one form, in one table and get it from one window. Three licenses are combined into one. All of these reforms have stimulated the passion for innovation by lowering the thresholds for application and simplifying the related procedures.  

Recently, Yichang has issued a document named “The suggestions to promote people’s entrepreneurship” in order to build a convenient, efficient and manageable system. Yichang is to develop different kinds of system such as “incubator plus investments”, “internet business” to make entrepreneurship less costly, more convenient and more open.

According to the data from the Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau, till the end of June this year, there are altogether 74,829 private companies in Yichang city, 50,220 of which were newly-added ones when compared to those of 2012. The increasing rate is 204.07%. The private registered capital reaches 120.917 billion yuan, increasing 54.978 billion yuan. The increasing rate is 120.21%. (Reporter: Jin Guiman; Liu Jingjing)