Zhejiang to foster private enterprises

Workers assemble medical equipment in a manufacturing company in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

East China's Zhejiang province, an economic powerhouse which is renowned for its thriving private sector, is aiming to ease the burden on all businesses in the province by 150 billion yuan ($21.6 billion) this year in a bid to ensure robust growth and add impetus to its private sector, pledged a top official.

"The private sector has been, and will always remain the main force of Zhejiang's economy, and the most distinctive feature and biggest advantage of Zhejiang," said Che Jun, secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.

He further elaborated that the province, the cradle of China's private sector, will further boost the sound development of its private economy to offer entrepreneurs with more senses of honor, pride and achievements.

"Looking back at the 40 years since China implemented the reform and opening-up policy, we have the strong and intensive feeling that the unprecedented achievements Zhejiang has accomplished are indispensable from the robust and thriving development of the private economy. In today's Zhejiang, one-tenth of its population are private business owners, and one out of every 29 people in Zhejiang owns a private enterprise, so the private sector will always remains the hallmark of Zhejiang," said Che.

The province recently launched a financing guarantee corporation to support the financing of its small and micro-sized enterprises to enhance their liquidity. It also established a financing fund to ensure the sound and steady development of listed companies in the province.

Zhejiang will also adopt an active fiscal policy and focus on key areas such as digital economy and financial stability, encouraging business innovation from the private sector, he said.

Further on, with the deepening of its "Run once at most" campaign, the vitality of the local market mainstay has been greatly stimulated, Che said.

The initiative was raised by Zhejiang in December 2016, aiming to simplify application processes and minimize bureaucratic red tape at all levels.

In the first three quarters of this year, a total of 339,000 enterprises were newly-launched in Zhejiang, a year-on-year rise of 19.3 percent.

"With all these measures taking place, we are confident the private sector in Zhejiang will achieve a greater success in the New Era," Che said.

In the first three quarters of this year, the province's volume of gross domestic product reached 3.98 trillion yuan, up 7.5 percent year-on-year. The added value of its digital economy, a featured sector in the province's economy, rose a robust 14.8 percent year-on-year, accounting for 9.7 percent of the province's combined GDP.