Jiangsu accelerates building global foreign-related legal service network

In recent years, Jiangsu province in East China has been developing a comprehensive, efficient and professional foreign-related legal services system in a systematic manner.

Through its proactive innovation, the province has laid a solid foundation for sustainable and high-quality development in this sector. A global foreign-related legal services network, based in Jiangsu and extending worldwide, is rapidly taking shape, continuously extending strong legal support for the province’s high-level opening-up and high-quality development.

Comprehensive service framework

Jiangsu has established a tripartite foreign-related legal service system based on a "domestic centers + overseas service stations + institutional contact points" model.

The system hinges on foreign-related legal services centers at its core, supported by overseas service stations and supplemented by collaborative institutional contact points. Its aim is to build a global legal services network with a "one-hour response" capability, which is rooted in Jiangsu, serves businesses across the country and reaches major countries participating in Belt and Road cooperation.

The province has positioned the cities of Nanjing and Suzhou as key hubs for foreign-related legal services, while encouraging other cities to develop specialized service platforms based on their local advantages. These efforts are expected to provide full-cycle and comprehensive legal safeguards for enterprises that are busy expanding abroad.

For instance, the Jiangsu (Nanjing) Foreign-Related Legal Service Center — established through collaboration between provincial, municipal and district authorities — has become a regional model.

The center offers services in four major areas: comprehensive foreign-related legal support, international commercial and maritime dispute resolutions, specialized corporate legal services, and institutional and talent development, with its coverage extending to key Belt and Road partner countries.

Suzhou, meanwhile, has upgraded its Global One-Hour Legal Service Network by collaborating with over 300 legal service institutions and hundreds of professionals across more than 50 countries and regions to provide targeted cross-border legal resources for businesses.

Other initiatives include Wuxi's establishment of a real-time global legal service response mechanism and Yancheng’s development of the China–South Korea Legal Service Industrial Park, which hosts 22 legal service organizations and fosters industrial clustering.

Improved efficiency of services

To meet the complex and growing legal demands of enterprises that are going global, Jiangsu has deepened the integration of its legal services with industrial chains, significantly improving their service efficiency through innovation.

The notary sector in Suzhou illustrates this shift. Moving away from a traditional, passive and fragmented model of notarization, it now proactively embeds notary services into industrial chains, offering integrated solutions to common legal issues faced by high-end manufacturing and foreign trade companies during their international expansion.

To address tax and logistics challenges in the disposal of bonded goods by processing trade enterprises, Suzhou’s Justice Bureau has launched a one-stop platform for customs-related notary services. By incorporating notary organizations into the disposal process and utilizing blockchain technology for real-time record-keeping, the platform has paved the way for efficient connections in customs supervision and effectively addressed issues such as high taxation on defective materials.

Building on such local practices, Jiangsu has been refining its provincial-level service system to provide more inclusive and efficient foreign-related legal services.

By 2025, the provincial justice department expanded its integrated notary services — combining foreign-related notarization and consular legalization — to 35 additional county-level notary offices. As such, it is delivering full-chain, one-stop legal support for cross-border investments, international trade and the protection of overseas rights.

Targeted support for enterprises

Across Jiangsu, localities have rolled out their diverse and innovative service measures that are tailored to local industrial characteristics and corporate needs — extending the reach of legal services to every scenario of business developments.

An example of this is Wuxi city, which has launched a special campaign to provide legal support for local enterprises that are going global — with lawyers providing both on-site consultations and in-office services to outbound investment companies.

Similarly, Nantong has introduced a specialized legal support initiative for local enterprises. This integrates legal services into trade events such as the Nantong Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering Fair and the Cross-Border E-Commerce Sourcing Fair, where hundreds of legal inquiries have been resolved on the spot.

Overall, judicial administrative organs across the province have advanced the "industrial chain + legal services" special campaign and worked with relevant departments to conduct legal outreach activities for more than 240 Jiangsu-based enterprises that are operating abroad.

Moreover, the province has issued more than 30 industry-specific legal guides, including an overseas investment in solar energy guide, boosting the professionalism and internationalization of Jiangsu's foreign-related legal services.

These days, with its interconnected platform network, continuous innovation in service models and accelerated integration of global resources, Jiangsu's foreign-related legal services ecosystem is steadily improving. It provides a robust legal safeguard for facilitating the dual circulation of domestic and international markets and advancing the province's high-level opening-up.