Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, is revving up efforts to create an open, fair and world-class business environment that supports the city's sustained high-quality development, local officials said.

On March 3, the General Office of the State Council issued a list of innovative measures that optimize the business environment. The new innovative measures totaled 15 items.

Four of Guangzhou's practices were selected as national innovation measures, making the city a champion with the most innovative initiatives selected.

The four measures consist of using blockchain technology to improve bidding efficiency, promoting smart customs clearance, implementing "diversion of complicated and simple, fast and slow lanes" in bankruptcy cases and achieving in-depth application of electronic licenses.

In October, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the China Business Environment Report 2020. Among the 18 indicators involved in assessment, Guangzhou was rated as a benchmark city.

In addition, Guangzhou was selected as the "best practice" for the four indicators of "access to electricity," "cross-border trade,""bankruptcy," and "market supervision". The "land-use list system" was also selected as a "one province, one case" reform collection.

The China Business Environment Report 2020 was China's first national report that assessed the country's business environment.

Guangzhou's benchmarking award is an impressive recognition and affirmation of the city's high-quality business environment.

Guangzhou has made optimizing its business environment a top priority. It has implemented a group of reforms on administrative approval and governance.

New World Development, headquartered in Hong Kong, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Guangzhou government on Jan 13 to officially establish the headquarters of New World China in Guangzhou.

"I definitely feel the conveniences brought about by the reform of Guangzhou's business environment," said Huang Shaomei, executive director of New World Development and director and CEO of New World China Land. "For example, the issue of 'handling building permits' is recognized as the most difficult item in the World Bank's evaluation indicators."

"Now, the entire process from acquiring land to registering property rights for simple low-risk industrial projects only requires 11 work days," she said.

A senior official of Guangzhou said the city will focus on solving the pain points and difficulties of market entities by establishing a long-term mechanism for reducing costs and burdens for enterprises.

He added that Guangzhou aims to create a stable, fair and transparent business environment, deepen the reform in the use and protection of intellectual property rights and accelerate the construction of a high-standard market supervision system.

"We also must construct a digital government and set up service brands to realize the 'one network and co-governance' of urban management and social governance," the official said.