Guangdong Province has won the nation's best reputation for business environment award for the fourth year in a row, said Zhang Hu, executive vice-governor of the province, at a recent press conference of the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China.

Due to the continuous improvement and optimization of the province's business environment in recent years, Guangdong now has the country's largest number of business entities, according to the Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation at a press conference on January 2.

As of the end of 2023, the province has 18.07 million registered business entities, accounting for one-tenth of the country's total. Over 1.73 million new business entities were registered in the province last year, showing the highest growth rate in the past five years.

In recent years, Guangdong has issued a range of policies to optimize the business environment and protect the rights and interests of foreign investment, as well as intellectual property

（） rights, in order to better safeguard the legal rights and interests of investors from both China and abroad.

As of the end of 2023, Guangdong registered more than 199,000 foreign-funded enterprises, accounting for a quarter of China's total, with a year-on-year increase of 5.1 percent. Last year, 21,000 new foreign-funded companies were registered, a year-on-year increase of 40.8 percent, according to the Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation.

Meanwhile, the provincial government has made efforts to accelerate the link-up of rules and mechanisms in the field of market supervision with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and deepen the reform of the registration confirmation systems in recent years.

According to the Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation, more than 8,000 Hong Kong and Macao-funded legal entities were registered in Guangdong last year, a significant increase of 64.4 percent year-on-year. The newly registered legal entities from the two SARs have helped the province's total number of Hong Kong and Macao-funded legal entities to increase to more than 96,000 by the end of 2023, up 15.5 percent from the previous year.

(cnbayarea.org.cn & GDToday)