The business climate in Xiamen ranked 38th worldwide in 2017, up two places over 2016, according to the Xiamen Development and Reform Commission.

The city entrusted the evaluation to the Chinese Business Climate Research Center of Xiamen University (XMU), one of China's top schools.

The research center's Evaluation Report on Xiamen's 2017 Overall Business Climate states that Xiamen ranks 38th among the world's 190 economic entities.

Of the 10 evaluation indicators, five saw improvement over last year, including building permit applications, tax services, starting a business, bankruptcy processing, and property registration.

In 2017, Xiamen carried out a series of measures to create a more favorable business environment, such as streamlining investigation on energy efficiency, environmental assessment and water protection in building permit application, expanding the scope of online reservations for property registration and constructing "Single Window" processing for international trade.

New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark are the top three in business climate of the 190 world economic entities considered. Shanghai ranks 78th, three places ahead of Beijing, according to XMU's research center.