Northeast China's Jilin province recorded 120,000 newly registered business entities of all sorts in the first quarter, from sole traders, partnerships and ranging up to corporations, representing year-on-year growth of 19.3 percent, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of those, 29,000 were newly registered companies, a year-on-year increase of 32.5 percent, ranking Jilin province the third in the country and first in the Northeast China region.

There were 7,129 newly registered companies from places outside Jilin province, up 31.3 percent.

Newly registered business entities in the cities of Siping, Meihekou and Liaoyuan increased by 134.6 percent, 98.7 percent and 55.9 percent, respectively, in Q1, all hitting local record highs.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the Jilin Provincial Department of Market Supervision is understood to have urgently transformed its eChuangtong system and enabled remote auditing.

Statistics showed that since March 7, a total of 22,000 market entities were established remotely.