Anhui’s new foreign-related legal service center inaugurated

The Anhui (Hefei) Foreign-related Legal Service Center was officially inaugurated on July 28. The center will pool high-quality legal service resources from both within and outside Anhui province to establish a professional, efficient, and trustworthy platform for foreign-related legal services. It aims to foster an open, transparent, stable, and predictable legal environment, steadily enhance Anhui's internationalization level, provide robust legal support for the province's deeper integration into the Belt and Road Initiative, and contribute to high-level opening-up.

Located in Hefei Legal Services District, the center features input from both Anhui province and Hefei city, leveraging the district's resources, functions, and geographical advantages to provide full-chain services for both domestic enterprises going global and foreign enterprises investing in China. The center's initial team comprises 31 leading foreign-related lawyers, 86 high-caliber foreign-related lawyers, 247 foreign-related notaries, and 221 arbitrators proficient in resolving foreign-related disputes.

According to Luo Jianhua, director of the Justice Department of Anhui, the center will integrate legal and ancillary service resources, including services by lawyers, notarization, arbitration, mediation, and foreign law ascertainment, and address new challenges such as increasing cross-border trade disputes and data compliance issues.

Luo emphasized that through collaboration among relevant government agencies, including commerce, foreign affairs, and customs, the center will provide comprehensive legal services covering project negotiations, contract review, and dispute resolution, and establish a law-based system to safeguard the entire lifecycle of cross-border investments, so as to effectively mitigate risks for enterprises going global.

He added that the center also aims to meet the legal demands of open economic development by aligning with international legal service standards. By fostering a market-oriented, law-based, and international business environment, it will create a strong synergy for the province's development of foreign-related rule of law.