The most popular type of running business in China for foreigners is to form a wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE).However, obtaining a business license of WFOE is not a little case even for the local Chinese registers. It requires lots of paperwork and a long and complex procedure. Therefore, with the help of a local professional consulting company to take care of the application process is obviously necessary.
It will take two to three months to complete the formation in practice, even though the law says that the process should take no longer than two weeks. Why is it so time consuming? Filling out all the paperwork, preparing long lists of documents such as certificates of incorporation, bank reference letter, leasing contract of office address, ect will take time to begin with. Then, there likely will be obstacles which require correct “guanxi” to be in place. “guanxi” could make whole steps go faster and more smoothly.
For yourself, you just focus on providing all correct information including names, investment amounts, ownership percentage, ect. Pay more careful with the spelling of numbers and foreign names as most Chinese write in a different form of English letters with the local English speakers which may cause trouble getting them right.
As for opening bank in China, they use stamps rather than signatures. Each company has a company stamp, special financial stamp and the legal person has a personal stamp. All banking matters as well as signing contract require you to stamp on the papers. This means that stamps need to be kept in a especially careful way.
Upon the successful registration,you will get all licenses which are packed with red or green covers including business license, enterprise code license, foreign exchange certificate, tax certificate, financial certificate, ect and then you could start your business in China.