The province of Shandong will continue to intensify reforms to foster more dynamic and innovative market entities, said local authorities during a news conference held on Sep 2 by the Information Office of the Shandong Provincial People's Government.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, the province will continue to streamline administration and delegate power, improve regulation, as well as upgrade services to foster a sound business environment and make better use of the role of government.

A building in the Yantai area of the China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone [Photo/VCG]

More efforts will be made to advance reform for separating operating permits from business licenses. In addition, there will be a focus on reducing the procedures, documents, time, and expenses required for government review of applications submitted by enterprises. The mechanism for market entities to exit the market will be refined, while the system for deregistering micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises with simplified procedures will be implemented.

A number of government permits were abolished in the reform separating permits from business licenses that was implemented nationwide, while the time needed to start a business was considerably shortened. In addition, the types of industrial production permits were cut by over a third.

Since early 2018, Shandong has launched a pilot reform to separate permits from business licenses in 29 State-level functional zones. In December 2019, the trials were launched in China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone and produced notable results.

By the end of June this year, 68,000 new market entities had been registered in the Shandong FTZ, which involved nearly 80,000 business licenses and benefited 13,000 enterprises.