Chongqing- At the 2021 CIFTIS, a new model of foreign-related legal services developed by Yuzhong District, Chongqing was successfully included in the 20 national demonstration cases, demonstrating new business forms, new models, and new progress of service trade development in the country.

Internationalized and law-based business environment

An official from Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce said that, as one of the first pilot cities to deepen the innovative development of trade in services in China, Chongqing is continuously seeking an innovative path and model in exploring how legal services can help enterprises fully integrate into the development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Under the new model of foreign-related legal services, Yuzhong District advances the agglomeration of foreign-related service resources, innovatively creates a diversified dispute resolution mechanism and explores the whole-chain and integrated service model.

The district promotes "Internet +" smart service facilitation. It speeds up improving the statistical system for foreign-related legal trade-in services to strengthen the subjects of diversified foreign-related legal service, further optimize the internationalized business environment based on the rule of law, and make the agglomeration effect of foreign-related legal service talent increasingly prominent.

"Duan & Duan is a professional law firm specializing in foreign-related business introduced by Yuzhong District to enhance foreign-related legal services," said an official from Yuzhong District Commission of Commerce. The district adopts a dual model to introduce well-known law firms from inside and outside Chongqing.

For example, the Hong Kong-based de Bedin & Lee LLP has set up a representative office in the district. Solton & Partners have been encouraged to establish a lawyer alliance. Those measures help the district enhance the brand influence of foreign-related legal services and lay a foundation for offering foreign-related services to domestic and foreign enterprises.

Promoting the automobile project in Indonesia

According to Leng Kaiwei, director of the Chongqing Office of Duan & Duan, the legal service the law firm provided to a Chinese bank's cross-border loan project for Indonesian vehicle passenger-based transformation was selected among the top ten commercial transactions (non-litigation) legal service cases in 2020 by Chongqing Bar Association.

The industrial group of Chongqing concerned is a global comprehensive automobile manufacturer integrating research and development, production, and sales of intelligent vehicles. It was rated as one of China's top 500 enterprises and China's top 500 private enterprises in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

The group invested U.S. dollars 150 million in building a modern automobile manufacturing plant in Indonesia in response to the BRI. To promote project construction, it planned to borrow 209 million yuan from the Chongqing branch of a Chinese bank to ease the group's rising costs of overseas financing and operating pressures under the pandemic prevention and control.

Qiu Yu, a partner, and Zhang Lina, a senior lawyer at the Chongqing Office of Duan & Duan, conducted due diligence investigation together with Indonesian lawyers, reviewing the compliance and giving legal risk advice based on Chinese and Indonesian laws, and proposing design and optimization suggestions on transaction model and structure, so as to accelerate the loan progress.

After nearly a month of hard work, they completed the investigation and the drafting of project-related agreements and financing documents, efficiently facilitating the signing of the loan project so that the loan was approved as scheduled, and the financial difficulty of the international project would be effectively alleviated as expected.

Legal services help Chinese enterprises go global

While continuously exploring new models of foreign-related legal services, Yuzhong District has also encouraged professional legal service institutions to build databases of legal talent adept at English, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Uzbek, Cambodian, Burmese, Lao, and Thai to fully meet Chinese enterprises’ needs for professionals in those languages for going global.

The district will further cultivate foreign-related legal service talent, strengthen industrial training and foreign exchanges and cooperation, introduce and nurture brand service institutions, roll out a number of policies to promote the high-quality development of legal services, fully support foreign-related legal service institutions in carrying out foreign-related service forums, lectures, and other activities, and expand the influence of the district's foreign-related legal services, according to an official from Yuzhong District Commission of Commerce.