Policy Recommendations for Optimizing the Business Environment in the Process of High- Quality Development: Evidence from Guangxi, China

Abstract

High-quality development is the primary task in comprehensively building a modern socialist country, and advancing it requires a high-quality business environment. Focusing on the Guangxi border ethnic region that is both coastal and adjacent to national borders, this paper examines the significance of optimizing the business environment for promoting high-quality development in Guangxi. It then analyzes the current state of the business environment from three perspectives: attracting foreign investment, promoting investment, and reforming government services. The analysis identifies several salient problems, including low efficiency in administrative service approval, a lack of overall coordination and interdepartmental linkage, difficulties and high costs for micro and small enterprises to obtain financing, shortages of human resources, challenges in attracting and retaining talent, an insufficient level of digitalization, and limited resource sharing. Drawing on international experiences from Singapore and Ireland as well as domestic cases from Hong Kong and Zhejiang, this paper proposes policy measures such as deepening the “streamlining administration, delegating powers, improving regulation, and optimizing services” reform, ensuring that pro-enterprise policies are implemented in a targeted and effective manner, strengthening science- and technology-enabled financial services, enhancing mechanisms for talent cultivation and recruitment, and improving the regulatory framework and transparency. These recommendations provide a reference for building a high-quality business environment in Guangxi.