Evaluation and Comparative of Business Environment in Provincial Capital Cities in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River

Provincial capital cities are the main spatial driving force for leading high-quality development in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and also an important foundation for promoting the development of metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations. One of the key elements influencing the economic development of provincial capital cities situated in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is the business environment. It is regarded as urban development’s soft strength. This paper builds a doing business evaluation system for the provincial capital cities in the middle reaches of Yangtze River. Entropy weight analysis were used to empirically analyzes the level of the business environment from 2017 to 2021. It is point out that the business environment index of Wuhan and Changsha indicates an upward trend, while the business environment of Nanchang is characterized by a decline. There are still disparities in the market environments, public environments, and governmental environments among the provincial capitals. It also faces difficulties related to the rule of law environment and ecological environment. Recommendations are provided to improve the business environment in the middle-reaches of the Yangtze River capital cities by enhancing cross-city collaboration and learning, optimizing the development of the public environment, enhancing the development of the government affairs environment, encouraging the development of the rule of law environment, and placing an emphasis on ecology and green development in response to the aforementioned issues.