Privately owned enterprises in China have grown on a large scale and turned into an indispensable part of China's economy in the wake of two decades of development.
According to figures released by an international seminar held in Haikou Thursday, a total of 1,689 private enterprise groups have been set up. Each enterprise has a registered capital of 681,800 yuan on average.
The private enterprises across China gained 768.6 billion yuan of output value last year, up 31 percent over the previous year.
Their sales revenue totaled 419 billion yuan, an increase of 34 percent.
By the end of last year, the number of business firms has risen to 31.6 million with a total workforce of 62 million workers.
Their registered capital totaled 343 billion yuan. More than 860,000 private firms, or 57 percent of the total, engage in the service trade. The number of industrial firms showed a rising momentum.
(Xinhua 11/03/2000)
