Private businesses booming in Zhejiang

Zhejiang province, an economic engine in east China, saw the registered capital of private enterprises and self-employment businessmen reaching 53.43 billionyuan (6.45 billion US dollars) in the first six months this year, up 77.51 percent over the same period last year.

The figures indicated that 297 million yuan (35.8 million US dollars) went to private economic sector each day in the first half of the year, according to the provincial administration for industry and commerce.

By the end of June, the registered capital of self-employment businessmen totaled 46.96 billion yuan (5.67 billion US dollars), while the registered capital of private enterprises amounted to 344.3 billion yuan (41.5 billion US dollars).

The administration attributed the increase of private economic sector to the province's preferential policies that encourage self-employment businessmen to start their businesses and private enterprises to expand their operation.

A total of 231,000 individual, self-employed households opened their businesses and 44,900 private firms launched their operations in the first six months, a year-on-year increase of 24.53 percent and 5.65 percent respectively, show the figures from the administration.

During the period, the private businesses in Zhejiang generated459.45 billion yuan (55.48 billion US dollars) in gross production output value, up 20.96 percent year on year.

The administration said that expansion of private businesses had created more job opportunities. In the first six months, 900,500 people and 71,600 laid-off workers found jobs in private economic sector. By the end of June, self-employment businessmen totaled 3.076 million and private enterprises employed 4.244 million.

Source: Xinhua