The government has made headway in business system reform with priority on business licensing integration, and its efforts have surpassed public expectations and helped boost market development.

According to data from the State Administration for Industry & Commerce, newly registered market entities reached nearly 3.6 million in the first quarter, up 19.5 percent over the same period in 2016.

Among them, more than 1.2 million were newly registered enterprises and over 2.2 million were individual businesses, 18 percent and 21 percent higher than the previous year, respectively.

According to online information, netizens generally remained positive about the current market access environment. They think highly of the business license reform, with positive comments accounting for 99.5 percent of the total, said Yu Fachang, spokesman for the administration.

They believe it is good for reducing institutional costs of enterprises and facilitating mass entrepreneurship, he added.

During this year’s two sessions, Premier Li Keqiang stressed the government’s efforts in transforming functions and reforming the business system, and support for promoting mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

With the government’s help, over the past three years, more than 40,000 market entities were created every day, meaning more than 10 million came into being every year.

The initiative of mass entrepreneurship and innovation that the Premier put forward is an approach to solve two major issues in China’s economy — employment and innovation, said Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma.

Although the economic growth rate has slowed, China has seen more than 13 million urban jobs being created for four consecutive years. Analysts believe that millions of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) founded in the process played the biggest role in promoting employment.

New driving forces of China’s economy were also promoted. In the first quarter, the number of construction enterprises increased rapidly, up 73.1 percent from 2016. Manufacturers and high-tech enterprises increased 25.4 percent and 14.8 percent, respectively, and the number of service businesses also saw rapid growth.

Premier Li said in the government’s work report that business reform should be continued. “We should make continuing efforts to promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation to boost development of both SMEs and large enterprises, and to invigorate market vitality,” he said.