Party and government officials at all levels in East China’s Fujian province have pledged to further economic reforms and create a better development environment for companies, just as President Xi Jinping recently noted in a letter to Fujian’s entrepreneurs.

30 of them had written a joint letter which was delivered to Xi on May 18. They came up with various opinions and pieces of advice on how to speed up reform and development of Chinese enterprises.

Xi wrote in a reply on July 8, praising the entrepreneurs for their excellent performance in economic construction over three decades, and urging them to keep up the momentum.

“I hope all of you adhere to the spirit of being a pioneer, further liberalizing your minds, being creative and courageous, uniting to achieve mutual benefits, and playing a bigger role in China’s healthy, sustainable economic development,” wrote Xi.

Fujian will follow market economics to play a “decisive role” in resource allocation, and further encourage various economic forms such as non-public economies and the mixed ownership economy, according to Yang Yimin, mayor of Fuzhou, capital city of the province.

Private capital will be allowed to engage in investment, construction and operation of municipal public projects and infrastructures. The administrative approval procedures will be simplified to build a sound environment for enterprises, he added.

Those policies and measures will soon be officially rolled out by the government, Yang said.

His words echoed President Xi’s sentiment, in his reply to the joint letter, that governments of all levels are transforming their functions, streamlining administration and delegating more power to the lower levels, with the aim of further vitalizing the market and creating a better platform for enterprise innovation.

President Xi’s reply gives local governments more confidence in the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), said Lin Jie, director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Xiamen Government.

The commission will improve the full-provider system, promote mixed ownership economies and attract private capital and strategic investors to the share-holding reform of SOEs, he added.

The Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone spearheaded business registration reform last year, which invigorated the market and succeeded in attracting more investment. Officials from the local administrative service center pledged that they would further cut red tape and increase innovation for the enterprises.

Huang Guofu, head of the Economic and Trade Commission of Quanzhou city, said that all of the Party and government cadres would engage themselves in assisting the scientific innovation, transforming and upgrading of the local companies.

The executive service center of Longyan city revealed that it would shorten the approval period of new projects from more than 300 days to no more than 36 days. It would also expand its client scale to the grass-roots people.

Officials from economy-related government departments in other cities in the province, including Jian’ou, Sanming, Zhangzhou, Ningde also vowed to follow Xi’s instructions to push for economic reforms and make a better business climate.