Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei to offer 144 hours visa-free

Foreign investors who intend to set up a business in the city are now required to obtain about 15 licenses and certificates issued by 11 departments. The materials include an administrative license, information collection and management filings.

"Within this year, they will just need one single license," Chen said. "By sharing repeated basic information among different departments and making the registration procedures available online, the whole process will only take five working days."

For years, China has been working to shift its economy toward a growth model based on consumption, services and innovation.

Describing Beijing as a testing ground for the nationwide opening-up of the service sector, Wang Shouwen, vice-minister of commerce, said: "We can expect new progress and breakthroughs in easing market access, speeding up institutional reform and establishing supportive systems for the sector."

In 2016, China's service sector accounted for 51.6 percent of the country's gross domestic product, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

For Beijing alone, the added value of its service sector was around $292 billion in the same period.