The World Bank has placed China in the 31st spot of its 2020 Doing Business Report, making the country one of the 10 fastest-reforming economies in the world for two consecutive years.
Furthermore, during the last four years, China has risen up in the rankings by nearly 50 points in terms of the best "doing business" criteria, entering the lineup of the top 30 countries in the world.
The latest edition of the World Bank 2020 Doing Business Report identifies the 10 economies that have developed most by introducing regulatory reforms in terms of "ease of doing business": China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Togo, Kuwait, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and India.
The 10 listed countries have enacted a total of 59 regulatory amendments, representing a fifth of all the reforms reported globally. Their efforts mainly focused on the areas of starting up a business, dealing with building permits, and trading across borders, the report said.
It indicated that China implemented substantial reforms in eight out of 10 "doing business" areas in 2018 alone, from starting a business, through building permits and getting electricity, to paying taxes and registering property.
For instance, improvement in the handling of building permits has been especially impressive. While it took more than 12 months to secure a building permit in Beijing just a few years ago, now it only takes 93 days.
In March 2018, in the annual Government Work Report, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that China would lay the foundation for municipal governments to impose a reform agenda.
World Bank 2020 Doing Business Report standards then became the benchmark, aligned with the central government's ambition to improve the Chinese economy's competitiveness.
But, doing business reforms alone may not be enough to sustain the country's notable efforts. World Bank managing director Yang Shaolin said. This is because the quality of the business environment "goes beyond doing business rankings."
The next round of reforms to continually improve the business environment has begun, the Ministry of Finance says. The sample cities in China, to be measured by the World Bank for the next rankings, could be extended from two (Beijing and Shanghai) in the study to four. However the candidate cities have not yet been identified.
At a forum in Beijing last November, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun said that the Ministry of Finance, various government departments, and municipal governments in Beijing and Shanghai have jointly participated in the World Bank's global business environment assessment and promoted a series of reforms, taking global best practices as a guidance.
