Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province ranked 12th in China in terms of business climate, a recent report said.

In addion to Ningbo, the cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Nanjing and Wuhan also made the top 15 model city list, according to the China Business Climate Report 2020.

The report, the first national report on business climate, evaluated cities in 31 provinces and regions across China.

Ningbo's innovative measures in such fields as protecting small and medium-sized investors, taxation, administrative services and government procurement were included in the report.

In recent years, Ningbo has been making diligent efforts to build a congenial law-based business climate in line with international standards. 

Administrative service procedures have been greatly streamlined. 

For instance, the approval time for construction projects in the city has been shortened to less than 70 workdays, while the time required for enterprise investment projects has been slashed to a maximum of 47 workdays, down from the original 172. The 105 items that enterprises previously had to declare to import goods have been reduced to just nine.

The optimized business climate has stimulated the local market. Official data show more than 180,000 market entities were established in Ningbo in 2019, an increase of 6.8 percent year-on-year.

The local authorities plan to further deepen systemic reform and promote the application of internet technologies in administrative services, creating a stable, fair, transparent and predictable environment for all types of market entities.