BEIJING - China has made steady progress in leveling the playing field for all market players as it seeks to promote high-quality development of the country's market regulation sector, Zhou Zhigao, an official of the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), told a press conference Friday.

"Fair competition is the core of the market economy and an important safeguard for promoting high-quality development," Zhou said. He shared that recent years had seen the SAMR continuously exerting efforts to regulate market competition behavior and effectively maintain a level playing field for all market players.

In the past two years alone, the watchdog has successively carried out antitrust actions and strengthened supervision and law enforcement in sectors that concern people's livelihoods such as medicine, building materials, automobiles and public utilities, he said, noting that regular antitrust supervision in the digital economy sector has been deeply promoted.

In the meantime, the watchdog has also supported and guided company operators in strengthening antitrust compliance, according to the SAMR.

Moreover, the body is accelerating the formulation of the national standard on this topic and actively promoting the formation of a multi-governance pattern where enterprises take the initiative to comply, the government provides effective guidance, and society offers broad support, according to Zhou.

At Friday's press conference, Pu Chun, vice-head of the SAMR, said that by the end of June, the number of registered individual businesses had reached 125 million, accounting for 66.9 percent of all business entities in China.

Commenting on the "numerous and widespread" individual businesses, Pu said that the business group had played a positive role in stabilizing employment, promoting development and benefiting people's livelihoods.

The watchdog will continue to improve institutional measures for the business group, such as formulating regulations on promoting the development and standardizing the registration management of individual businesses.

The measures are expected to address key and difficult issues such as the registration of "individual to enterprise" conversions, inheritance of business rights and market exit, thereby better supporting the long-term development of individual businesses, Pu said.