Hebei province has launched a fresh push to attract businesses, vowing to create a "first-class" environment for investors at home and abroad.

At a key meeting in the provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, on Tuesday, officials declared their ambition to make the business climate the region's "golden signboard". It's the fourth year running that the province has opened its post-Spring Festival agenda with this topic.

The province's efforts are yielding tangible results. Official data showed that by the end of last year, the number of market entities in Hebei reached 9.24 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.84 percent, according to Yang Yongjun, head of the province's development and reform commission.

Private investment grew by 8.6 percent in 2025, outpacing the national average, Yang said at a press conference on Wednesday.

This momentum is partly attributed to reduced logistics costs, with the ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP dropping to 13.7 percent, below the national average, making the province more appealing to investors, according to the commission.

Looking ahead this year, with the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), Hebei has introduced an action plan for optimizing and upgrading the province's business environment along with several key initiatives. The measures are designed to further break down barriers, reduce costs, and improve services. Strategies include deepening reforms to ensure fair market competition and dismantling obstacles to fair participation in tenders.

"The province will actively integrate into the national unified market, strictly implementing negative list management for market access," Yang said.

Furthermore, Hebei is enhancing cross-regional services. A new service model will facilitate the "one-application, one-time processing" for inter-provincial business relocation. The goal is to enable the entire Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to process, issue, and collect business licenses remotely.