BEIJING, Jan. 12 -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has underlined efforts to implement policies properly in order to help market entities overcome difficulties, as well as deepening reforms to spur market vitality and public creativity.

Li made the remarks during an inspection of the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Monday. He also chaired a symposium on the same day.

While listening to a report at the National Intellectual Property Administration, Li learned that the average time taken by the patent review process has been cut by one third compared with five years ago.

He urged efforts to provide services with higher quality and efficiency to accelerate the application and transformation of innovation and promote industry upgrade.

At a data analysis center of the SAMR, Li learned that China's market entities have increased in number from 55 million 10 years ago to 169 million now, while there are more than 110 million self-employed individuals. Efforts should be made to continue fostering market entities, Li said.

China has made use of the combination of reforms and preferential policies to nurture and foster market entities in recent years, Li said at the symposium. The moves have played a key role in maintaining the stable operation of the economy, he added.

Li said that market entities, especially the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as self-employed individuals, are facing difficulties and some new problems. In view of this, he emphasized efforts to maintain policy stability and continue implementing the previously-introduced package of policies to stabilize the economy and the follow-up measures thoroughly.

Efforts should also be made to respond to the concerns of market entities, help them with problems relating to labor, credit funds, the supply of raw-materials and other issues, and prompt a quick resumption of work and production after the holiday, according to Li.