The All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (CFIC) recently released its conclusions from an annual survey on business environment it carried out this year.

According to the 2021 survey, the top 10 provincial-level regions in terms of business environment were Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Beijing, Sichuan, Hunan, Henan, and Fujian. The top 10 cities in this regard were Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Suzhou, Shenzhen, Ningbo, Qingdao, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Changsha, and Chengdu.

Hangzhou, Wenzhou, and Ningbo, which respectively ranked first, second, and fifth, are all cities in Zhejiang province.

The CFIC initiated the nationwide survey on business environment in 2019, which immediately drew widespread attention for its reliability. The survey is a weighted analysis of questionaries collected from around 70,000 sampled privately-owned companies of various sizes and from different industries in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities.

Hangzhou had maintained the highest score for business environment among all Chinese cities in the three consecutive annual surveys.

Wenzhou, which ranked sixth in the 2020 survey, moved up to second place this year.

Workers check manufacturing robots at an automobile plant in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, in August. TAN YUNFENG/FOR CHINA DAILY