China's non-state-owned industry continued steady growth during the
second quarter of this year, according to the State Economic
Restructuring Office.
During the last three months since April, the output of
non-state-owned industry saw a year-on-year increase of 11.6, 11.9
and 12.1 percent each month respectively, the latest research by
the restructuring office found.
The average rate of increase has kept abreast with the overall
development of China's industry.
The State
Economic and Trade Commission said last week that China
achieved faster year-on-year development in industrial production
in the first half of this year than last year. Total added value
reached 1.446 trillion yuan (US$174.2 billion), and output
increased 11.7 percent compared with the same period last year.
Xia Xiaolin, a member of the research group of the economic
restructuring office under the State Council, attributed the rise
to a favorable international economic situation and encouraging
policies implemented by the central government.
Xia said the central government has noticed the importance of
private enterprises in the re-employment of workers laid off by
state-owned enterprises.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji pointed out in his government work
report earlier this year that China should encourage and support
the healthy development of the private economy.
Following Zhu's report, the State Development Planning Commission
made public a package of measures to continuously invigorate the
private sector.
At
present, China's private economy has developed from a minor player
into one of the major components of the socialist market
economy.
The private sector's share of China's gross domestic product (GDP)
is estimated to have reached 33 percent, a little lower than the 37
percent share of the state-owned economy. The other 30 percent
comes from agriculture, the collective economy and the
foreign-invested sector.
The development of the Chinese private economy started in the early
1980s, and it grew at an annual rate of 20 percent, much faster
than the 9.5 percent growth rate of the national economy over the
past two decades.
The private economy in China's Shanghai and Guangdong and Zhejiang
provinces has contributed the lion's share to the economy.
Last October, Beijing cancelled the regulations limiting the
development of private enterprises, and gave them equal treatment
with state-owned and collective enterprises in terms of market
access, land use, bank loans, taxation, and import and export.
However, difficulties in getting bank loans have hindered the
development of private enterprises.
He
Xiaoming, a researcher at the State Economic Restructuring Office,
said that controls should be loosened to help small and
medium-sized enterprises and private firms get bank credit more
easily.
(China Daily July 29,
2002)