Suzhou among cities with happiest entrepreneurs

On Oct 25, the Entrepreneurs' Happiness Dialogue 2024, hosted by Xinhua News Agency'sOriental Outlook, was held in Taicang, a county-level city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, exploring innovative pathways for the harmonious and prosperous development of enterprises and cities.

With the tagline "Promoting Entrepreneurial Spirit and Developing New Quality Productive Forces", the event brought together representatives from a variety of cities and prominent enterprises. Participants engaged in in-depth discussions on fostering entrepreneurial spirit, advancing new quality productive forces, increasing entrepreneurs' happiness, and optimizing the business environment.

A highlight of the event was the announcement of the 2024 list of cities with the happiest entrepreneurs. Suzhou, along with Taizhou in Jiangsu province, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, and Taizhou in Zhejiang province, Chengdu and Yibin in Sichuan province, Changsha in Hunan province, and Qingdao in Shandong province, were ranked as the top cities in terms of entrepreneurs' well-being.

Taicang has been designated as the leading county-level city in terms of entrepreneurs' happiness in 2024, continuing its remarkable streak as the top contender in this category.

In addition, the Entrepreneurs' Happiness Suzhou Research Base was established. This base will utilize Suzhou and Taicang as research hubs to explore successful models for mutually beneficial development between businesses and cities. It will also offer pathways and insights for other cities to enhance their business environments.

"Through our research, we identified Suzhou as a hub of industrial development, providing an excellent case for our study. This year's data survey revealed that Taicang excelled in key areas such as talent and policy, positioning it as a leader," said Dai Wenming, spokesperson for the Happy Cities of China Forum, during an interview.

In recent years, Suzhou has been working to develop a top-tier business environment. It has been approved as one of the first National Intellectual Property Protection Demonstration Zones and one of the first National Trade Secret Protection Innovation Pilot Areas. In addition, the city has been recognized by the World Bank as “China's Gold-Medal City for Investment Environment” and by Forbes as one of the best commercial cities on the Chinese mainland.