On June 18, the Central Radio and Television Station released the Report on Urban Business Environment in China 2019. In the comprehensive ranking of 36 cities in terms of the business environment, Chongqing ranks fifth in China, following Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.

The World Bank's business environment evaluation system standard is benchmarked in the Report, with reference to that of international peers. The Report's evaluation system consists of such five dimensions as infrastructure, human resources, financial services, the government environment, and inclusive innovation.

Let's take the government environment as an example. The State Council has set a time limit of 8.5 working days for the establishment of enterprises, which, in Chongqing, was cut to 5 working days in 2018 and 3 working days in 2019. The time needed to start an enterprise in Chongqing at the beginning of this year has been shortened to one working day.

Let's look at financial services. In a bid to create a sound business environment, Chongqing has introduced a series of preferential financial policies in recent years. This year alone, 10 of the 40 measures to support enterprises are related to financial support, including guarantee and credit enhancement, reduction of loan interest rate, the discount interest rate on loans, and new loans for agriculture-related small and micro-businesses.

Notably, the Report shows that in terms of inclusive innovation evaluation, Beijing ranks first, and Chongqing ranks second, indicating that Chongqing is leading the country in fostering innovation.

In recent years, in order to guide and encourage enterprise innovation, Chongqing has made great efforts to build an excellent innovation ecosystem. The Chongqing Science and Technology Innovation Index Report (2019), released at the end of 2019, shows that Chongqing's comprehensive science and technology innovation index reached 69.79%, an increase of 3.56 percentage points over the previous year.

A favorable business environment must ultimately be reflected in the dynamism of market players.

From January to May this year, a total of 171,500 new market players were added in Chongqing, an increase of 7.36% year on year. Particularly in May, 50,600 new market players were added in Chongqing saw an increase of 50.18% compared with last year.