The Market Supervision Bureau of Shanghai's Qingpu district issued the first business license and the first food business license during the 3rd China International Import Expo for a New Zealand-based trade enterprise on Thursday, which means the company is eligible to start operation in the Chinese market on the same day, according to a report from Xinhua.

The whole process of issuing the licenses took less than two hours.

"The approval time has been greatly reduced by optimizing the process, which opened a green channel for high-quality New Zealand products to the Chinese market," said Zhang Mei, deputy chief at the bureau's licensing division.

As a foreign company specializing in honey and other New Zealand products, this is the first time it participated in the expo as an exhibitor, as company executives visited the 2nd CIIE a year ago.

"We visited the second expo and felt the huge potential of the Chinese market, so we came to the third edition as an exhibitor," said Xu Shujun, director of the company.

Xu said the company once assumed that the process for licensing might take a few months, and did not expect the whole process to be completed in two hours.

The Market Supervision Bureau learned the needs of exhibitors and investors for licenses in advance, and provided consulting services, as well as guidance on materials preparations.

"We hope that by optimizing the approval process, consumers will be able to enjoy high-quality products from different countries at the fastest speed," Zhang said.