China to further cut corporate burdens, dismantle market barriers in 2026

 China will intensify efforts to reduce corporate burdens and dismantle institutional barriers this year to ensure the stability of industrial and supply chains and secure business operations, according to an inter-ministerial meeting held in Beijing on Wednesday.

The State Council's inter-ministerial joint conference on reducing enterprise burdens outlined a 2026 work plan focused on addressing pain points across the entire business cycle with comprehensive measures.

The meeting emphasized the need to establish and practice a correct view on governance performance. It called for efforts to conduct grassroots research to identify and resolve the immediate, practical difficulties that enterprises face.

Plans to achieve this goal include optimizing the business environment through standardized administrative enforcement and the implementation of smart and credit-based supervision.

The meeting called for establishing a precision policy-to-enterprise matching mechanism to ensure policies reach the right companies, supported by a closed-loop management system for addressing corporate complaints.

In 2025, regulatory crackdowns on irregular charges and the continued rollout of tax and fee support policies played a significant role in stabilizing market expectations and boosting enterprise confidence.

The office of the inter-ministerial mechanism is housed within the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. ■