Shenzhen has won the title of “City with Best Reputation for Business Environment in China” for the fourth consecutive year, following a survey conducted by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.
The ranking was based on the results of a survey involving over 140,000 Chinese private enterprises in 2023.
Shenzhen is among the top 10 major provincial capital cities and sub-provincial cities that have earned the best reputation for business environment, according to the survey. The other nine cities are Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Hefei, Qingdao, Wuhan, Changsha, Guangzhou, and Chengdu.
Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Shandong, Hunan, Guangdong, and Sichuan are the top 10 provincial-level cities and provinces with the best business environment.
A city’s business environment can be evaluated in many aspects, including local governments’ service level, degree of opening up, as well as local economic development, according to Liu Xuezhi, a macroeconomics expert from the Bank of Communications.
Foreign direct investment is another important factor used to evaluate a city’s business environment. It is also important to review the economic activity of local small- to medium-sized enterprises, particularly individual-run businesses, according to Liu.
In 2022, Shenzhen’s actual use of foreign capital reached a new high of US$11 billion, accounting for 39% of Guangdong Province’s total.
Shenzhen so far has over 4 million business entities, including 743 national-level specialized and sophisticated enterprises that produce new and unique products. Such enterprises, also nicknamed “little giant” companies, focus on a niche market and master key technologies with strong innovation capacity.
Shenzhen has a long-standing tradition of valuing enterprises and entrepreneurs, and has made every effort to provide fertile ground for their growth. As one of the first batch of Chinese cities to pilot innovations in business environment, Shenzhen has regarded optimizing its business environment as the top priority.
In August last year, Shenzhen issued a series of measures to optimize its business environment, further stimulating market entities’ vitality to prosper.
