To advance market-oriented reforms and stimulate market entities, China launched a series of reform policies this year to establish a fair, open and transparent business environment.
In civil aviation, railways and other key sectors, market access was further eased, with facilitated procedures for investment and trade, and mixed ownership reform was implemented in some monopolized industries to introduce private investment.
Meanwhile, the government also strengthened supervision and intensified law enforcement to ensure a fair and orderly market competition.
Internet Plus government services were enhanced, and a national data sharing and exchange platform system was built to ease the process of starting businesses.
Market supervision departments continued to push commercial system reforms to streamline administrative procedures for enterprises, including the reform of registered capital registration system, integration of multiple certificates into one business license, and the separation of business licenses and operation permits.
Starting from Nov 10, 2018, 106 enterprise-related approval items were reformed nationwide. The time required to start a business in major cities would be cut to within 8.5 days before the end of this year.
Meanwhile, the port environment was improved and cross-border trade facilitated. So far, the overall clearance time of China’s exports and imports was cut 40 percent.
In 2018, to attract foreign capital, China released up to 65 policies to promote and protect free trade. In June, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce published the negative list for foreign investment, and pilot free trade zones continued to expand opening-up in culture and telecom industries.
In addition, China carried out a special campaign to protect the intellectual property rights of foreign-funded enterprises and imposed tougher punishment for violations.
According to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform, China ranked 46th on the list of 190 economies in business environment, advancing 50 spots from 2013. And the report ranked China 28th in ease of starting a company, up 130 spots over the previous five years.
