BEIJING — The number of market entities in China reached 145 million on the back of government efforts to streamline the process for starting a business, official data showed.

In the first half of the year, a total of 13.95 million market entities had been newly established, basically returning to the expansion pace before the COVID-19 epidemic, according to Xiong Maoping, deputy head of the State Administration for Market Regulation.

The data showed that around 9.46 million individual businesses were added during the January-June period, growing 28.1 percent year-on-year, which helped stabilize the job market.

China has striven to enhance policy-based support to stimulate the vitality of market entities to ensure they survive and thrive.