East China’s Jiangsu province has made unremitting efforts to optimize water, electricity and gas accessibility for corporate clients so as to further improve business climate, the provincial department of housing and urban-rural development said recently.
The optimization of water and gas access for corporate clients is progressed from integrating and optimizing processes, simplifying application materials, and conducting parallel administrative approval.
Water and gas access will be materialized in no less than 35 working days and 40 working days respectively while the materials needed for the application will be further streamline, making the province lead the country in these aspects.
In terms of the optimization of electricity access, Jiangsu Power Company will slash the time spent on formalities and simplify the application and approval procedures. Low-voltage customers only need to provide two kinds of information when applying for power access. High-voltage customers only need to provide 4 kinds of information. In this way, large and medium-sized enterprises and small and micro enterprises will be able to have 4 and 3 items scrapped from the formalities while the average time spent on the access will also be further reduced.
Jiangsu Power Company will also improve the reliability of power supply. In 2019, the reliability rate of urban and rural power supply in the province will reach above 99.9%.
China is now one of the top 50 economies in the world for ease of doing business, due to a record number of reforms carried out last year, according to a report released by the World Bank Group last October.
China's reforms in areas including cutting administrative red-tape earned the country a spot in this year's top 10 global improvers, according to the report.
Progress made in the areas of starting a business and getting electricity was particularly impressive.
Since 2017, three procedures were removed and consequently it now takes 9 days to start a business, on par with most OECD high-income countries.
Getting an electricity connection is also entirely free in China. Japan and the United Arab Emirates are the only two other countries in the world to have this distinction. As a result, China has earned a global rank of 14 in the area of getting electricity.
