China's market regulator has taken multiple measures in the past year to create a level playing field for all market competitors, an official said on May 15.

China has become more business-friendly, with the average time for starting a business in the country shortened from 20 days to 8.5 days in 2018, Gan Lin, deputy chief with the State Administration for Market Regulation told a press conference on a report highlighting China's new progress on intellectual property protection and business environment.

Gan said the regulator emphasized anti-monology enforcement last year in pursuing a better business environment, which strictly punished monopoly pricing in areas concerning people's livelihood.

Some key sectors such as electricity and real estate faced stricter pricing supervision, with 18,000 infringement cases investigated. In addition, 11,000 cases involving unfair competition were cracked.

Gan said the regulator also took efforts to optimize the consumption environment, and one of the measures is tightening the supervision on vaccine and drug production.

"Tighter supervision across the whole production chain has been carried out to reform the country's vaccine management system, and on-site inspection of high-risk products such as blood products and injections has also been conducted," Gan said.