The State Council issued a guideline on Nov 3 to deepen reform of the commercial registration system, and once that is implemented, enhance follow-up supervision.

Departments and governments at all levels are required to carry out the reform, regulate approvals in accordance with laws and regulations and ensure transparency, according to the guideline.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce will be responsible for publishing a catalogue of items that need approval before commercial registration, and update the list of items that can seek approval after registration.

It also asked relevant departments to perform their duties and strengthen follow-up supervision after the reform, to avoid possible regulatory gaps.

Industry and commercial departments should inform registration applicants of the items that require approval and departments responsible for granting approvals. They should also inform the approval departments about information concerning market entities that seek efficient registration.

All relevant departments should carry out their designated duties and investigate possible problems, the guideline said.

To do so, efforts should be made to innovate the supervision mechanisms, enhance information exchanges and sharing and improve the credit supervision mechanism.

According to the guideline, by the end of next year, local governments should complete the collection of enterprise information to be released to the public, concerning administrative approvals and punishment.

Local governments should also, by the end of next year, realize real-time information exchanges among industry and commerce departments, approval departments and others.

The establishment of a trans-department coordination mechanism that punishes dishonest behavior will also be completed by that time.

The State Council also encouraged social participation in the supervision of market entities.

Given their significance in regulating the industry, industrial associations and chambers of commerce are encouraged to participate in follow-up supervision and share information with local governments.