[Photo/zj.zjol.com]

Zhejiang province has witnessed an entrepreneurship boom over the past two months despite the outbreak of COVID-19, as evidenced by the fact that 158,247 market entities were established from Jan 23 to March 31. 

Many new companies sought inspiration from the epidemic.

Lvkang Liudao Jiayuan Healthcare Service Co was established in Yuhuan, a county-level city in Taizhou, on March 24. It aims to become the biggest private healthcare and elderly-care agency in Yuhuan.

According to a manager, the company was established based on the expectation that the medical service industry will grow after the epidemic and that the elderly and disabled are the group that needs quality services most.

A new restaurant in Jiaxing also opened recently. It was supposed to open in mid-February but this was postponed due to the outbreak. However, it was the epidemic that made the restaurant owners decide to change their business model.

"We saw an increasing amount of online business due to the epidemic, so we decided to focus more on online sales," said a manager of the restaurant.

"With the development of our economy, market entities are pursuing innovation which will in turn boost the economy," said Zhuo Yongliang, director of the New Economy Development Research Center of the Yangtze Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University, Zhejiang.

Zhejiang province has also released a series of measures to improve the local business climate, such as reducing taxes and facilitating financing.

The provincial market supervision bureau said it will continue to streamline administrative procedures for company establishment and strive to handle the establishment of more than 95 percent of companies online this year.