Have you ever heard this saying during investment promotion efforts: "The higher the official, the bigger the business"?

The meaning is quite straightforward. The higher the official’s rank, the more resources—such as policies, funds, and land—they can mobilize, and the larger the scale and investment amount of the projects they attract tend to be.

Some attribute this phenomenon simply to authority, believing that senior leaders hold more approval and decision-making power, which is why they can secure major projects.

But in reality, the key factor behind one’s rank is not the extent of their power or the number of privileges they hold, but rather the value they bring in terms of resource integration, credibility, and shared vision.

01 It’s Not About Privileges—It’s About Value Alignment

When it comes to major projects worth over 100 million yuan, they often get stuck at a "hurdle" they can’t clear.

Yet, as soon as a higher-level leader steps in, many of these difficulties are immediately resolved.

It’s not about the privileges that come with a higher rank; rather, it’s about several key advantages that help business developers overcome those insurmountable hurdles.

First, consider resource mobilization: this isn’t merely about delegating authority, but about integrating resources across the entire organization.

The authority of frontline investment promoters is mostly limited to the execution phase.

When navigating the approval process—especially when facing issues like tight land quotas or approval bottlenecks—and seeking coordination across departments, they often encounter a situation where departments pass the buck:

The Land Department says, “Quotas haven’t been allocated yet; we can’t provide land”; the Planning Department says, “The proposal doesn’t comply; we can’t approve it”; the Environmental Protection Department says, “The environmental impact assessment doesn’t meet standards; we can’t approve it”...

The role of senior management is primarily reflected in two aspects.

On the one hand, they hold the ultimate authority over the allocation of resources such as land quotas, energy quotas, and approval priorities;

On the other hand, they can transcend the narrow perspective of individual departments and act as overall coordinators to integrate resources.

When faced with cross-departmental challenges such as “incomplete documentation” or “unclear standards,” they convene relevant departments—including development and reform, land resources, and environmental protection—to collectively analyze the issues and devise solutions through a collaborative decision-making process.

Once a consensus is reached, they clarify responsibilities and timelines to drive the resolution of these issues.

This coordination capability, grounded in collective decision-making, ensures the scientific soundness of decisions while reducing the administrative burden on businesses and frontline investment promotion staff.

Issues that have been stalled for months can often be rapidly advanced and show progress within standardized procedures.

As for credibility, it is not backed by official authority but rather conveys the government’s commitment and resolve.

When companies invest in major projects—putting real money on the line—their greatest fear is uncertainty during the process.

For example, they fear that terms might change after a contract is signed, or that a new leadership might adopt a “no new official, no old accounts” approach, causing money spent on equipment and renovations to go down the drain.

When high-ranking officials step in, they convey not official authority, but the government’s overall credibility.

Commitments made by county, city, or provincial leaders represent the will and credibility of higher-level governments, effectively serving as a “credit guarantee” for the project.

This endorsement of credibility directly alleviates corporate concerns. When the top local official personally steps forward to negotiate, the signal is clear: “We are fully committed to this project,” rather than “it’s just a temporary decision by one person.” After all, no one wants to take risks due to “policy flip-flops.” Senior-level participation serves as insurance against such risks.

There is also a matter of shared vision—not hierarchical pressure, but strategic alignment.

When large corporations make investments, they look beyond a mere plot of land; they focus on regional industrial planning and national policy directions, requiring dialogue with those capable of discussing strategy.

Frontline investment promotion staff are often more familiar with local micro-level details—such as industrial park amenities and recruitment channels—but struggle to engage directly with executives from multinational corporations or Fortune 500 companies on industry trends and industrial chain布局.

Senior leaders, viewing the situation from a holistic perspective, clearly understand which industries the region should prioritize for future development and what national-level support can be secured, enabling them to engage in dialogue on the same wavelength as corporate decision-makers.

Take the example of Chengdu’s electronics and information technology industry, which has grown to a scale of 100 billion yuan: this achievement would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by top-level leaders in the early stages.

The city once launched a “100-Day Intensive Campaign,” led by municipal leaders who engaged directly with executives from target companies.

Rather than rushing to sign agreements, they first sat down to discuss industrial planning and development challenges, building mutual trust.

Having leaders personally step in not only boosts decision-making efficiency but also makes companies feel valued.

Even if no cooperation materialized at the time, this laid the groundwork for future collaboration.

The saying “the higher the official, the bigger the business” essentially means that the magnitude of a challenge determines the level of resource integration, credibility assurance, and strategic dialogue required to resolve it.

Official rank is merely a tangible manifestation of these capabilities, not the core reason.

02 After Senior Leaders Pave the Way: Hard Infrastructure and Soft Services Are Essential

The involvement of high-level officials can indeed break the deadlock and foster cooperation. However, for a project to truly take root, it requires the hard support of the region’s comprehensive capabilities and the soft assurance of meticulous service details.

On one hand, it depends on whether the local area can “handle the project”—its supporting capabilities determine whether the project can be implemented.

When enterprises consider establishing operations, they first assess whether the local area can meet basic requirements.

For example, what is the state of local supporting infrastructure—is it “seven utilities and one site preparation” or “nine utilities and one site preparation”? Is the power supply stable? Can natural gas and steam essential for production be delivered reliably?

Different-scale projects have different requirements.

For small and medium-sized enterprises, a few thousand square meters of standardized factory space is often sufficient to get started; large-scale projects, however, tend to have stricter requirements regarding land use, energy consumption, and environmental protection.

For instance, the annual comprehensive energy consumption of a major project may exceed 5,000 tons of standard coal.

Since approval authority lies with provincial-level agencies, county-level investment promotion teams must repeatedly travel to the municipal and provincial levels to coordinate.

In contrast, national- and provincial-level development zones possess stronger supporting capabilities; they can expedite approvals through fast-track channels, handling such issues with greater efficiency.

For larger foreign investment projects, the process involves translating and interpreting foreign-language contracts spanning over 100 pages, as well as navigating complex registration procedures. This requires investment promotion staff to possess cross-border service capabilities, which also falls under the scope of local support services. On the other hand, whether follow-up investment promotion services can keep pace is crucial; the level of professionalism determines whether a project can be retained.

If leaders successfully negotiate a project and establish a preliminary cooperation agreement, but then hand it over to frontline investment promotion staff for follow-up, and those staff members are not proactive, the service chain breaks down.

In such cases, even if the initial negotiations were highly successful, the project will still be lost.

We have seen cases where leaders worked hard to reach a consensus with a company, only to hand the project over to lower-level investment promotion staff. Due to slow responses, a lack of initiative in addressing the company’s technical questions, and failure to assist in advancing the approval process, the company felt a lack of sincerity and ultimately turned to other locations.

Senior leadership is like a general clearing the path, responsible for breaking down key barriers to cooperation; frontline staff are like soldiers cleaning up the battlefield—the company’s daily approval challenges, labor needs, and supply chain coordination all rely on the professional services of these frontline personnel to resolve.

Now that the "Regulations on Fair Competition Review" have been implemented, policies across regions are largely standardized. The practice of attracting projects solely through authority or special privileges is no longer viable.

An investment promotion director who understands industry, is well-versed in law, and has a grasp of finance is far more likely to win over entrepreneurs than someone who merely relies on their official rank to “save face.”

Once we move beyond the notion that “rank determines everything,” we realize that investment promotion is never the responsibility of a single level; rather, it requires the entire organization to pull together as one.

Senior officials are responsible for high-level coordination to secure critical support for projects, while local authorities ensure that implementation services are meticulous and solid, so that projects can operate without concerns in the long term.

Only in this way can projects truly be successfully attracted, established, and developed.

This is the underlying logic behind the saying “the higher the official, the bigger the business”—it is not about the scope of authority, but whether value can be effectively matched.