In January 2013, Cao Zhiwei, a member of the Guangzhou political advisory body, showed the mayor a chart of the approvals needed for an investment project. The project had to pass through 20 departments and collect 108 official seals. From approval of the project to the end of the approvals took 799 working days. Investors called the chart the “Long March map.”
According to the report, streamlining could cut the process to 232 working days, a reduction of 71 percent.