Located in northern Dongguan, South China's Guangdong province, Gaobu town is a pivotal hub for international trade and economic exchanges within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The town hosts approximately 50 foreign-invested enterprises above the designated size, accounting for more than half of its total industrial output, along with nearly 200 companies engaged in foreign trade activities.
In response to local development priorities, the Gaobu Justice Sub-bureau has adopted a multi-faceted approach to enhance its foreign-related rule of law in recent years. By improving coordination mechanisms, expanding the scope of foreign-related legal services, strengthening the cultivation of foreign-related professionals, and establishing dedicated support platforms, the sub-bureau has rolled out a series of concrete measures. These include setting up specialized communication channels, creating platforms to address legal service demands, building a talent pool, and providing targeted legal support to enterprises, all of which aimed at advancing the comprehensive development of foreign-related rule of law in Gaobu.
To support local businesses in both attracting foreign investment and expanding into global market, the sub-bureau has strategically aligned its foreign-related legal services with corporate needs through optimized resource allocation and innovative approaches to create new service models and application scenarios. Key initiatives included organizing annual legal publicity lectures, providing coordinated support for enterprises' overseas expansion, conducting legal compliance check-ups for foreign trade enterprises by community legal advisors, and establishing a 100-member public service legal team featuring 22 specialized foreign-related lawyers.
Through these measures, Gaobu has provided comprehensive and full-cycle legal services, including contract review, cross-border compliance guidance, and legal consultations on international trade, to more than 100 foreign trade enterprises in the town. By delivering tailored legal services directly to businesses, the sub-bureau provides continuous legal support for enterprises' high-quality development.
As the resolution of foreign-related disputes often involves navigating complex legal systems and bridging significant cultural differences, the sub-bureau has established an integrated dispute resolution mechanism. By coordinating with relevant authorities, it has pooled legal resources ranging from legal services by lawyers and notarization to more sophisticated services including legal consultation, legal aid, and mediation.
To better serve the town's clusters of European and Japanese-funded companies, the sub-bureau has strengthened specialized legal training for its personnel, enhancing their capabilities in foreign-related legal services including legal consultation, legal assistance, and dispute resolution. These initiatives have significantly enhanced the efficiency of the town's Public Legal Service Center, transforming it into a one-stop platform for handling a wide array of international cases, from trade contract disputes to cross-border labor issues.
Furthermore, the sub-bureau has taken proactive steps to expand the outreach of foreign-related mediation services. Focusing on frequently encountered disputes, such as those involving cross-border technology cooperation and foreign-related employment, and using major commercial trade parks and key foreign-invested enterprises as strategic fulcrums, it has established integrated mediation service platforms. So far, the town has set up one mediation office within an import-export fruit and vegetable trade park and two mediation committees in major foreign-invested enterprises, consistently enabling foreign-related disputes to be effectively resolved on site.
From turning disputes into agreements within mediation centers, to delivering legal guidance directly to factories, and providing law-based safeguards for enterprises venturing abroad, the Gaobu Justice Sub-bureau remains committed to exploring innovative methods to create more grassroots exemplars that support high-level opening-up.