Procedures streamlined for business

China will continue to improve the ease of doing business, said a senior finance official on Oct. 25.

"We will further streamline procedures, reducing time and costs," Yu Weiping, vice minister of finance, said at a news conference.

"We will also vigorously push forward legal construction to improve the business environment," he said.

China's overall ranking in the World Bank Group's Doing Business 2020 study surged to the 31st spot this year, from 46th a year ago and 78th in 2017.

In recent years the country has taken bold measures, such as easing the setting up of businesses, tax reductions, the protection of intellectual property and the expansion of market entry, to encourage investment from domestic and foreign enterprises.

The number of newly registered enterprises in the first nine months exceeded 17.6 million, up by 13.1% year-on-year, Yu said.

The State Council, China's Cabinet, approved a regulation on Oct. 23 to further improve the country's business environment and open up its economy.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange, meanwhile, will also take measures to improve foreign exchange management to promote cross-border trade and investment.

Wang Chunying, spokesperson and chief economist of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said on Oct. 25 that the administration will implement 12 measures to facilitate cross-border trade and investment in an effort to deepen the reforms to streamline administration and optimize government services, as part of the country's supply-side structural reform in the financial sector.

According to the new measures, China will expand the pilot reform of foreign exchange receipt and payment facilitation for trade from Shanghai, Zhejiang province and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to other regions.

The administration will also simplify the procedure of receipts and payments for trade in goods for small cross-border e-commerce companies whose volume of trade in goods is below US$2 billion. It is estimated that this new measure will benefit over 95% of the cross-border e-commerce corporate clients of payment institutions.

In terms of cross-border investment and financing facilitation, the administration will allow foreign non-investment enterprises to carry out domestic equity investment with their own capital.