New reforms to boost investment

In March 2018, Premier Li Keqiang said in the annual Government Work Report that China would set the stage for municipal governments to implement a reform agenda.

Then standards of the Doing Business report became the benchmark, aligned with the central government's ambition to improve the competitiveness of the Chinese economy.

Following that, the Chinese government created working groups targeting each of the "doing business" indicators.

But, the doing business reforms may not be sufficient on their own to sustain China's remarkable performance, said Yang Shaolin, managing director of the World Bank.

"This is because the quality of the business environment goes beyond the doing business ranking.

"One important dimension of this is the environment faced by foreign investors. In recent months, China has taken some steps to improve legislation, through the Foreign Investment Law, and to reduce restrictions in, for instance, the financial or in the automobile sector.

"The legislative improvements are important. A key concern is consistent implementation, including at the local government level."

In addition, opening up key service industries would not only bring additional capital to China but enhance competition and contribute to higher productivity growth. It would also increase the chance of improving trade and investment relations with key partners and facilitate the conclusion of new trade and investment agreements, said Yang.

"This in turn would help to reduce the current uncertainty we face in the world economy and provide a boost not just to foreign but also domestic investment in China."

According to the Ministry of Finance, the next round of reforms to continually improve the business environment has started. The sample cities in China, to be evaluated by the World Bank for the next rankings, may be expanded to four from two (Beijing and Shanghai) in the report. The candidate cities, however, have not been identified yet.

Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun said at a forum in Beijing on Nov 22 that in recent years, the Ministry of Finance, various government departments, and Beijing and Shanghai municipal governments have jointly participated in the World Bank's global business environment assessment and promoted a series of reforms, taking the "global best practices" as guidance.

The reforms also promoted opening-up, in line with the international rules and standards.

Although the World Bank's annual assessment measures the government's regulation from the point of view of domestic entrepreneurs, it is also correlated with regulation affecting foreign direct investment or FDI.