China's private enterprises employed 120 million people by
September this year, up 9.5 percent from the same month a year ago,
said a senior official on Saturday.
"The private sector of the economy is a main avenue of
employment and re-employment in China," said Zhong Youping, deputy
minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.
Zhang made the remarks at a forum on Chinese and Japanese small
and medium-sized enterprises held in Guangzhou of south China's
Guangdong province.
Developing the private sector would help increase job
opportunities and enable economic growth and employment to boost
each other, said Zhang.
Labor-intensive firms and the service sector could absorb a lot
of laid-off workers and college graduates, he added.
Last year China's industrial and commercial authorities helped
2.54 million unemployed people find jobs in the private sector and
nearly half of the country's new graduates entered private
firms.
(Xinhua News Agency September 16, 2007)