By Xinhua
Beijing : Nearly 200 million Chinese, out of a total population of 1.3 billion, are working in private business enterprises, said a report issued by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce here Friday.
China registered about 5.39 million private companies by September last year, 8.2 percent more than at the end of 2006, the report said. They have contributed to 60 percent of the country’s GDP.
Private business experienced a boom in the past three decades. The country used to incorporate private business into state-owned enterprises before it adopted economic reform in 1978.
Big private industrial companies performed well last year reporting total profits of 400 billion yuan ($54.79 billion) in the first 11 months of last year, a year-on-year increase of 50.9 percent, the report said.
A company with an annual revenue of 5 million yuan ($685,000) or more, is considered a big one, according to the report.
Private companies also invested more last year. In the first 11 months of 2007, their fixed assets investment totalled 5.67 trillion yuan, up 36 percent over the same period in 2006. It accounted for 56.4 percent of the total fixed assets investment in urban areas.