World Bank – Doing Business in China

China’s Business Reform Success: Economies with the most notable improvement in Doing Business 2020 The annual World Bank publication - Doing Business covers areas of business regulations that are indicators which measure the ease of doing business in an economy, including: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. Over the past two years, China has moved from 78th to 31st on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings. China’s accelerated business reforms have shown significant improvement in rankings and has placed it at the forefront of global best practices in several areas.

China’s Improvements in the Global Doing Business 2018 - 2020 Ranking

Source: World Bank 2020

Significant Business Reforms:

• In 2017, China launched online company registration and simplified social security registration in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as implemented a simplified company de-registration procedure nationwide.
• The “five-in-one business license reform” and policies like “One Window, One Form” reduced the days needed for starting a company from 22.9 days to 8.5 days.
• Simplifying the approval of construction permits for low-risk projects and other regulations have also reduced the total time needed to obtain building permits.
• In 2018, China introduced a unified negative list system for market access across the country, allowing all types of market players to enter industries, fields, and businesses outside of the negative list.
• In June, 2020, China introduced two negative lists for foreign investment, reducing the number of items from 40 to 33 on the national negative list and 37 to 30 on the free trade zone negative list.