Beijing plans to cut the time for starting a business from an average of 22 working days in 2017 to five this year to improve its business environment, according to a government notice issued on March 18.

The notice, released jointly by the municipal commercial, tax and public security authorities, said Beijing will take measures to complete business registration within five working days by the end of this month.

The capital city will promote online registration and tax payment system to facilitate the procedures.

Beijing has 2.1 million enterprises, up 47.52 percent than five years ago. More than 500,000 of them are technology-based enterprises, up 121 percent than five years ago.

(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2018)