DEVELOP HIGH-QUALITY SERVICES AND IMPROVE THE INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT1
JULY 18, 1988
As Jiang Zemin has pointed out, we must improve service attitudes in all aspects of Shanghai, including the investment environment. That environment cannot be addressed with just “one chop.” If related services in various areas aren’t available, people still won’t be willing to come here, and quick project approvals won’t be of any use.
When Jiang Zemin and I attended a news conference last week, some reporters told us that journalist teams coming here from many Beijing publications have been subjected to all sorts of “treatments” and have sworn never to return to Shanghai again—it seems that the situation is growing more and more serious. Yesterday I received a letter from Ozaki Haruo, the Shanghai bureau chief of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, stating how irresponsible the posts and telecommunications department is. He said they have to buy two copies of all newspapers. Why? Because they can’t read their subscription copies in the morning as these don’t arrive until the evening, so they have to buy copies from a newsstand. Every day they have to buy dozens of duplicate newspapers. I forwarded this letter with a note to Xu Zhichao, head of the Municipal Bureau of Postal Services and Telecommunications, asking officials to visit the grassroots post offices, telegraph offices, and telephone offices and discuss with them how to help Shanghai improve its investment environment.
The problem is really too serious. Right now, you basically can’t enter Shanghai through its airports and ports, or you can enter but can’t exit, nor can you buy tickets. The bureau chief keeps some tickets, the department chief keeps some, the section chief keeps some—by the time you get to the ticket window there are basically no tickets available, so you have to go through many back doors and think of all sorts of methods in order to get hold of a ticket.
Another issue: hotels need unified management: we must strengthen the authority of the Municipal Tourism Bureau. You have to take charge of the hotels—I don’t care if it’s the Jinjiang Hotel, the Donghu Hotel, or what—you must take charge of them. Today everyone is so adept at internecine fighting and undercutting each other’s prices, yet they are unable to go out and make money. How can we revitalize Shanghai like this? A famous American author,2 who wrote The Long March: The Untold Story, met with me recently and after our talk asked me to help him buy a plane ticket. He said he wanted to return to Beijing but wasn’t able to do so. What a joke—asking the mayor to buy a ticket! I also joked, saying that I’m not in charge of the airline. As a local official, I’m not in charge of the central government’s enterprises, but I’m on very good personal terms with them so I said I’d help him buy a ticket. This is really absurd! We have to think of a way to have unified management of those tickets retained at every level and not allow back-door channels. As it is, when foreigners want to leave, they have to buy high-priced tickets; otherwise they basically can neither come nor go—how can this be? Foreigners who want to invest won’t come and tourism can’t develop. We now really and truly must boost morale internally and improve Shanghai’s image externally.
Of course, poor service attitudes reflect a belly full of grievances, which are due to a poor understanding of the current situation and a lack of confidence. Shanghai people have no confidence in Shanghai—foreigners have a bit more confidence in Shanghai than its own people do. At the first land-lease sale in Hongqiao, for example, the Sun Enterprise Company Ltd. of Japan bid over RMB 100 million, three times the reserve price. This shows confidence—they feel they can make money. Also three countries competed furiously for the Shanghai Metro project. They could see that Shanghai has great potential for development and that they can make money, yet we ourselves don’t have much confidence. So we must not only make a concerted effort to educate the public but must rectify service attitudes. I’m asking [Vice Mayors] Liu Zhenyuan and Ni Tianzeng to hold some meetings to study the measures proposed here and to see what steps to take next.
Although the 10 measures proposed in the document3 are very good, they will be very hard to implement because the departments concerned are not under our jurisdiction. The railway station is under the Ministry of Railways, the ports are under the Ministry of Transportation, the airports are under the Civil Aviation Administration—did they all make commitments to your tasks? In these matters we have to follow a set procedure, bring together the parties concerned for a talk, and finally issue documents. We must also be open and transparent, making clear our goals and responsibilities.
In addition, we can help expedite matters. If they don’t have the money, we can carry the load together. Leading members of the Finance Bureau are here. I’m going to help expedite matters: take some money from Shanghai’s reserve fund. What do I mean by carrying the load together? Surely telephones should be installed at the airport. Passengers should be able to make calls from all over the airport, even international calls. There should be more kiosks, postal counters, and telecommunications facilities at airports, ports, and bus and railway stations—these should be very convenient to use. These agencies should be investing money in this, but if they don’t have enough, the city will provide one-half. If they’re willing to help improve Shanghai’s investment environment, we would greatly welcome it and be very appreciative. If they have difficulties, we will help. This is Shanghai’s window. How can we let passengers feel inconvenienced as soon as they get off the plane? Ge Buzhou,4 I’m going to set this precedent—let’s fix these within a very short time. Xia Keqiang,5 foreigners are now calling me out on my tough talk, saying never mind Zhu Rongji, he can’t even solve the taxicab problem. This must be improved—can’t we fix it? I’m now going to ask Xia Keqiang to represent me in taking charge of taxis. We’ll call him group leader Xia Keqiang, head of the city’s leading group on taxi management and Zhu Rongji’s representative.
Remember, too, that we’re an international city, and street signs shouldn’t be in pinyin Chinese. Jiang Zemin urges us not to have pinyin on the streets—it doesn’t look like English, nor does it look like Chinese. Who can understand it? Since we’re an international city, there must be signs in English at stations, airports, ports, and hotels. They are Shanghai’s portal. Money must be spent on this, and if they stubbornly refuse to pay it, the city will come up with the money. If the portal isn’t fixed up properly, how can people come? We’ve built so many hotels and restaurants, but nobody is coming. Now everyone is trying to undercut everyone else—how can we go on in this way? Shanghai needs to earn US$800 million to $1 billion from tourism; otherwise how can all these hotels repay their loans? “The English introduction signs at gardens and scenic spots will be completed within the year.” This needs two entire quarters to accomplish? Is Director Wu Zhenqian of the Municipal Bureau of Parks and Greenery here? Can’t you do this a bit faster? Who’s paying for the toilets at the gardens and scenic spots? Do they have the money? Eke some out yourselves and if you can’t, then go to the Bureau of Finance. How can we go on if we can’t even solve the problem of toilets?
What role should enterprise groups play? They should coordinate and supervise; they should invigorate each hotel, go out, and find guests; they should work with various international tourism organizations and organize end-to-end services. Hilton hotels, for example, don’t have a problem finding guests. They have international connections and are fully booked. I think that once the Garden Hotel starts operating, the Jinjiang Hotel won’t have any business; all their guests will be taken away by others. We have to hurry up and “fight our way out” instead of fighting with our own people and undercutting each other. We have to give hotels the authority to do business with foreigners, allow them to invigorate themselves and to organize end-to-end services. After you’ve attracted guests, you then have to organize sightseeing for them, buy airline tickets for them, find tour guides for them, and provide end-to-end services. Also, we have to improve service attitudes and hold competitions.
We now have to study whether to establish a Municipal Tourism Commission, because the State Council has established a Tourism Commission. We could establish such a commission without increasing staffing—its office could be within the Municipal Tourism Bureau. For instance, Liu Zhenyuan could be its director and Ni Tianzeng its deputy director, and it would be more convenient to hold meetings and issue orders under this name. This isn’t only for the sake of tourism—it’s also a very important measure for improving the investment environment.
Furthermore, we should have computerized management. One Swiss hotel group I looked at, with six large hotels in Zurich and large hotels in other parts of the world, manages rooms through computerized reservations. This is a good method that can connect the whole world. We have many people here, but everything is still so muddled—it’s just exasperating! Shanghai should be a bit more advanced in these things. It’s an international city and Shanghai has the traditions.
Beijing has this policy: any hotel that doesn’t have computerized management will be fined. We can do the same thing. At the moment, people know all the sneaky and underhanded tricks, but make no effort when it comes to truly modernized management.
1. This is part of a speech made by Zhu Rongji at the 11th mayor’s administrative meeting of the Shanghai municipal government.
2. American author Harrison E. Salisbury.
3. This was the draft of the “Decision of the Shanghai Municipal Government on Improving Shanghai’s Tourism and Investment Environment and Developing High-Quality Services,” which was submitted for discussion at the aforementioned 11th mayor’s administrative meeting.
4. Ge Buzhou was then director of the Shanghai Transportation Office.
5. Xia Keqiang was then a deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai municipal government.