Privately-owned businesses in east China's Jiangsu province are thriving with 60,000 new firms registered in the first seven months of this year.

By the end of last July, the number of privately-owned enterprises soared to 398,000, up 15.6 percent over the figure at the end of last year. Their combined registered capital came to 475.5 billion yuan ( 57.4 billion US dollars).

In Jiangsu Province, where private businesses developed rapidly,the added value gained by privately-owned or individual enterprises was 209.5 billion yuan (25.3 billion dollars), making up 31 percent of Jiangsu's gross domestic product (GDP).

Nowadays, the private sector in China has expanded from traditional industries to the fields of culture, education, health, sports and some new industries such as E-commerce and software. The newly-issued government decision on reforming the country's investment system also encouraged private investment andallowed it to enter infrastructure areas.

With government support, the booming private business in China has increased its contribution to the national economy. In Jiangsuprovince, the local private companies turned over 18.2 billion yuan (about 2.2 billion dollars) in tax to the state in the first seven months of this year, a 56.3-percent rise.

The private business boom also created a growing number of wealthy executives. Official statistics in Jiangsu showed that 6,879 private company owners have registered capital of more than 10million yuan (about 1.2 million US dollars).

Currently, the non-governmental business has become a major channel to absorb the unemployed in China. Private companies across the country have employed 80 million urban residents, aboutone-third of the country's total urban employee.

In Jiangsu province, the number of people working at private firms increased by 787,200 in the first seven months of this year.