At the end of the first half of the year, there were 25.057 million registered small businesses in China, an increase of 1.7 percent from the same period of last year, according to statistics released by the State Administration of Industry and Commerce.

The number of private domestic companies is 4.648 million, up by 8.1 percent from the same period last year

In terms of development, the primary industry has made some progress. The grocery industry is thriving the most successfully. The fastest growing industry is the industry concerned with the production and supply of electricity, gas, and water, followed by real estate, the service sector of farming, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline production, fishery, leasehold and commercial services. Businesses in small towns are also developing quickly; less so in rural areas.

Private enterprises have three major characteristics: firstly, the proportion of limited liability companies has increased to 77 percent and the number of stock companies is increasing quickly. Secondly, private enterprises in towns develop quickly, but slowly in rural areas. Some 3.119 million private enterprises are located in towns and 1.529 million are in rural areas. Thirdly, optimization of the industrial structure has accelerated the development of primary industry. The number of the private enterprises in primary industry is 90,000, up by 10.2 percent. This is 1.94 percent of the total number of private enterprises, up 0.04 percentage points from the same period last year.

Jiangsu province has the largest number of private enterprises, followed by Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Shandong.

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