North China's Hebei province on Saturday unveiled a series of measures to further optimize its business environment, focusing on boosting consumption, stabilizing foreign trade and attracting investment, as part of its ongoing efforts to foster high-quality development.

At a press conference held by the provincial government, Liu Yi, director of the Hebei Provincial Department of Commerce, outlined the progress made last year and key tasks for this year.

He said that the province's retail sales of consumer goods reached 1.55 trillion yuan ($225.99 billion) last year, a year-on-year increase of 5.6 percent, outpacing the national average by 1.9 percentage points.

This was driven in part by a trade-in program for consumer goods that helped generate 128 billion yuan in sales.

"Last year, we saw significant improvement in the business environment in the commercial sector," Liu said, citing robust growth in foreign trade and investment.

He added that the province will continue to implement measures to boost consumption, stabilize foreign trade and enhance the effectiveness of investment promotion.

In 2025, Hebei's total foreign trade value grew 11 percent year-on-year to 682.2 billion yuan, the highest growth rate since 2022, according to Shi Dexin, deputy head of the department.

Regarding the utilization of foreign capital, Shi said the province will focus on attracting more foreign investment by showcasing Hebei's development momentum and industrial strengths.

"We will provide one-on-one services for multinational companies with investment intentions and create a more convenient and efficient environment for them to settle in Hebei," he said.

In a separate press conference on Saturday, the Industry and Information Technology Department of Hebei announced plans to upgrade 107 key characteristic industrial clusters by promoting shared digital platforms and piloting a "cluster digitalization plus finance" scheme to improve financing for businesses.