The Harbin area of the China Heilongjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone recently rolled out initiatives to simplify registering and starting up companies, shortening the entire process to within around one hour, according to local officials.

Officials said the Harbin free trade zone is the first in China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province to provide the fast-track services.

The fast track services include enterprise registration, social security registration and arranging and appointment to establish a corporate bank account.

Officials said that Heilongjiang Shulan Construction Engineering Co was the first company to benefit from the new services, saying that it took the company about an hour to complete the entire process.

“In the past, it took three or four days to go through the whole process of registering an enterprise,” according to the head of Heilongjiang Shulan Construction Engineering Co.

The head of the company praised efficiency of the new fast-track registration process.

Moving forwards, the Harbin free trade zone plans to work more closely with the banks to refine the process further, officials said.