Shanghai Excels in Business Environment Rankings
According to a recent report from the World Bank, Shanghai has achieved outstanding results in measuring its business environment. The findings, part of the "Enterprise Surveys Country Profile China 2025," reveal that Shanghai has excelled in 22 key indicators out of 59 evaluated.
This positive news highlights Shanghai’s progress in aligning with international standards, improving regulations, and enhancing government services, as noted by Luo Peixin from the East China University of Political Science and Law.
Yao Weiqun, executive director at the Shanghai Institute for Strategy of the International Trade Center, emphasized the high satisfaction among local businesses regarding international trade. Companies in Shanghai awarded an impressive average score of 99.13 for trade-related services, significantly outpacing Singapore’s score of 89.1. This reflects the city’s strong customs services and effective trade regulations.
For the past seven years, Shanghai’s government has initiated special programs to streamline procedures, boost efficiency, and reduce costs for cross-border trade. In total, 173 reform measures have been implemented over recent years.
However, when evaluated on the subject of power outages, Shanghai companies reported a score of zero, illustrating the reliability of the city’s power supply. Furthermore, the cost of electronic payments is also zero. On internet service provider changes, the city attained a score of 96.2, while for commercial dispute resolution, Shanghai received a perfect score of 100.
The World Bank report also noted Shanghai’s top rankings in areas such as tax payment time, loan application time, internet reliability, and access to government procurement.
In contrast, Singapore achieved the best scores in 10 indicators and secured second place in the World Bank’s Doing Business evaluation.
Luo highlighted that these achievements are largely due to Shanghai’s ongoing efforts in institutional reforms. For instance, a stable power supply is a result of regulations that took effect in 2016, ensuring prompt responses from utility companies during outages.
Since launching its initial action plan to enhance the business environment in 2018, Shanghai has already upgraded this plan eight times, introducing a total of 1,101 new measures to support local businesses.
Recently, the municipal government unveiled ten key missions aimed at making further improvements to the business climate, with a press conference planned to discuss these initiatives in detail.
