Industry News

China's ranking in business environment rises to the 31st in the world

October 24, 2019

In accordance with the decision and arrangements made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, in 2019 the Ministry of Finance, in conjunction with competent departments and the municipal governments of Beijing and Shanghai, have been making efforts to align with advanced international standards and general international rules to further improve business environment. At the beginning of that year they worked out a reform plan that specifies goals of the reform, the responsible departments and a time table. As of May 2019, more than 130 reform goals have been realized with major breakthroughs achieved in institutional reforms on protecting minor investors and dealing with construction permits. With these advances the global competitiveness of China's business environment has been further boosted.

The World Bank released its Doing Business 2020 Report at 10 am Beijing time, October 24, 2019. The report gives China’s business environment a score of 77.9 points, 4.26 points higher than the previous year, which means the country has reached 77.9 percent of the best business environment level in the world. China’s overall ranking in the report jumped by 15 places from the previous year to 31st. It has been recognized as one of the 10 economies with the largest improvement in business environment for two consecutive years. The report shows that China has made progress in 8 of the World Bank's 10 evaluation indicators compared with its advancement in 7 indicators in the previous year. China's ranking rose by 88 places to 33rd on the indicator of Dealing with Construction Permits, rose by 36 places to 28th on Protecting Minority Investors, rose by 10 places to 51st on Resolving Insolvency, rose by 9 places to 56th on Trading across Borders, rose by 9 places to 105th on Paying Taxes, rose by 2 places to 12th on Getting Electricity, rose by 1 place to 5th on Enforcing Contracts, and rose by 1 place to 27th on Starting a Business. 

In the next step, the Ministry of Finance will continue cooperating with relevant departments and local governments to build a market-oriented and law-based business environment that meet international standard by participating in global business environment evaluation to thoroughly implement the new development principles, deepen the reform, and broaden the opening-up.