Shenzhen on Aug. 16 pledged to make the private economy “bigger, better and stronger” with 20 incentive measures designed to further optimize the city’s business environment for the private sector and stimulate the vitality of private businesses. The move marks a prompt response from local authorities to implement the comprehensive guidelines recently issued by the Central Government to support the private sector.

The measures include efforts to promote the high-quality development of the platform economy, a digital-based economy that utilizes online platforms, and to cultivate a group of private leading enterprises in emerging fields and characteristic industry clusters of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The city will also accelerate the advancement of open application scenarios in key fields such as high-end equipment, smart logistics, commerce, safety and emergency, smart health care, smart education, and green and low-carbon development, and stimulate technological innovative vitality of private businesses.

More support will be provided to facilitate private companies in financing and participation of private capital in major projects construction, and bidding and tendering.

Shenzhen will improve its fair competition review mechanism. It will also accelerate the implementation of 24 special measures to relax market access, and further relax market access in areas such as telecommunications, energy and electricity, and data elements.

Meanwhile, the city will encourage private companies to expand to overseas markets, strengthen guidance on responding to overseas intellectual property disputes, and improve overseas rights protection services for private enterprises.

Other measures include optimizing credit service mechanisms, speeding up the construction of corporate compliance demonstration zones, safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of private enterprises involved in criminal cases in other cities, and enhancing communication between government agencies and enterprises. 

The city also vows to introduce an action plan for the high-quality development of the platform economy, policies to promote the development of characteristic industry clusters of SMEs, measures to expand private investment and local standards for corporate compliance, by the end of 2023.

Shenzhen is home to a long list of renowned private firms such as Huawei, Tencent and BYD. Its private sector has been one of the most dynamic in major Chinese cities, playing an outsized role in the city’s economy. By the end of 2022, there were 2.379 million private companies in Shenzhen, accounting for 97% of the city’s overall firms, official data showed. The private sector contributed 55.9% of the city’s GDP, and accounted for about 70% of tax revenue.

By the end of March this year, the number of business entities in Shenzhen had exceeded 4 million, up by 4.61% year on year. Private enterprises contributed 1.07 trillion yuan (US$146 billion), or 64%, to the city’s total foreign trade in the first half of the year, according to data from Shenzhen Customs.