According to the newly-released World Bank report "Doing Business 2020: Comparing Business Regulation in 190 Economies", China's rank in regard to ease of doing business has climbed to 31st from 78th just two years ago, thanks to its strong reform agenda.

Economists, entrepreneurs and government officials shed light on the importance of improving the country's business environment and what still needs to be done to further improve the ranking during a panel discussion on the theme of building a business environment of fair competition at the "Understanding China" Conference on Oct. 26, in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province. 

Marcin Piatkowski, senior economist at the World Bank, analyzed why improving its business environment was vital in China. "Despite economic miracles after 40 years of development, China's income per capita is still one-third the level in most developed countries in the world," he said.

According to him, the two engines of China's economy, public investment and low labor costs, were losing momentum, therefore a third factor, productivity, was now of much consequence. "The critical part of rising productivity is the business environment reform," Piatkowski said.

He said that China could still do more to open up, to achieve a level playing field for every entrepreneur so that regardless of where people came from, when they carried out business in China, they would be treated the same.   

As to the important factor of building a favorable business environment for enterprises, Long Yongtu, chairman of Advisory Council of the Center for China and Globalization and chief negotiator of China's WTO accession, emphasized policy stability and predictability.

"What some businessmen care about is not how favorable the policy is, because they have the brain to evaluate and decide whether to invest or not," Long said. "They care more about whether the policy will be maintained. They are afraid of sudden change of the business policy and investment environment."

Speaking from the entrepreneurial perspective, Dong Mingzhu, board chairperson and president of Gree Electric Appliances, Inc. of Zhuhai, noted that to build a business environment of fair competition, merely relying on the government was not enough and the enterprises should stand on their own feet and let "Made in China" be recognized by the world. 

"We call upon the government to help build a favorable environment and the enterprises should abide by the regulations," Dong said, adding that "a fair business environment is created by every player." 

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