Private high-tech firms in south China's Guangdong Province, the country's No.1 economic and foreign trade giant, occupy a "very prominent position" in the province's high-tech sector, local officials said.
Out of the province's 2,396 high-tech firms, 1,259 are private, accounting for 52.5 percent of the total.
The private firms, which involve computer software, electronics and telecommunications equipment and other manufacturing sectors, generated 131 billion yuan (US$15.3 billion) worth of high-tech products last year.
The officials said late last week that the figure makes up 30 percent of the province's overall output of high-tech products, which stood at 430 billion yuan (US$52 billion).
Two private high-tech firms in the province -- telecommunications giants Huawei and Zhongxing in Shenzhen, took 80 percent of the Chinese market for programmed control switchboards.
Private high-tech firms in Guangdong Province account for 72 percent of the province's patents in the high-tech category in recent years.
(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2003)
