The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.Photo: VCG

Over the past nine months, the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has witnessed an average of 909 new enterprises appearing every day, bringing the total number of foreign-invested companies in the city to 2,818.

"The continuously improving business environment has promoted the rapid growth of foreign-invested projects and the number of enterprises in Guangzhou," said Wen Guohui, mayor of the city.

Wen made these remarks on Saturday at a forum themed "Building a Business Environment with Fair Competition," attached to the fourth Understanding China Conference. The forum introduced the resilience of the city's economy and its huge potential to attract foreign investment.

"To optimize the business environment, Guangzhou has built a national service platform for government affairs and has launched measures for administrative supervision and in other areas," he said.

The improving business environment has boosted economic growth. Guangzhou, capital of China's economic powerhouse Guangdong Province, gained 6.9 percent in GDP over the first nine months of this year to reach more than 1.78 trillion yuan ($252 billion), according to the Municipal Industry and Information Technology Bureau.

Guangzhou epitomizes China's efforts in the field, as the country has made the fastest progress in improving its business environment among its developing counterparts, said Marcin Piatkowski, a senior economist at the World Bank.

On Thursday, the World Bank released a report titled "Doing Business 2020: Comparing Business Regulation in 190 Economies," which read that China's ease of doing business ranking climbed to 31 this year from 46 last year. The report also showed that China, after implementing regulatory reforms, is now among the 10 most-improved economies in the rankings.

"To date, China has shown a notable improvement in the areas of dealing with construction permits, getting electricity and resolving insolvency," the report said.

According to Piatkowski, the rise of China's ranking is mainly due to special attention paid by the Chinese government, particularly in the formation and implementation of laws and regulations.

The expert said that China's business environment will continue to improve, which could make existing companies more competitive through reduced costs.

In the first three quarters of the year, foreign direct investment into the Chinese mainland expanded 6.5 percent year-on-year to 683.21 billion yuan, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics. 

Rosen Asenov Plevneliev, former president of Bulgaria, spoke highly of China's long-time commitment to fostering a business environment with fair competition, saying that China's efforts are important to maintain the current world order.

"The continuous improvement of the business environment in China will also stimulate the internal vitality of its economy and promote high-quality development," according to Fan Hengshan, former deputy secretary-general of China's National Development and Reform Commission.