China reports thriving private sector in first four months of 2025

(ECNS) -- Data shows that in the first four months of 2025, China's private sector maintained steady and positive development overall, with continuous market vitality emerging, the State Taxation Administration (STA) said on Tuesday.

Value-added tax invoice data shows that in this period, private sector sales revenue increased by 3.6% year-on-year, 0.9 percentage points higher than the national average for all enterprises, accounting for 71.3% of the total sales revenue among national enterprises, the department said.

By sector, the sales revenue of private manufacturing and high-tech industries grew by 6.5% and 15.5% year-on-year, respectively, with growth rates 1.8 and 1.6 percentage points faster than their respective national industry averages.

Stable development of the private sector has made significant contributions to maintaining overall macroeconomic stability, the STA said

Concretely, as of the end of April this year, the private economy accounted for 79.4% of all enterprise employees who pay endowment insurance premiums, up 0.2 percentage points year-on-year, with the number of payers increasing by 0.9% year-on-year, 0.2 percentage points higher than the average growth rate across all enterprises.

The STA highlighted the growing number of newly established business entities. Tax data shows that as of the end of April 2025, the number of tax-related private businesses nationwide increased by 7.6% year-on-year, accounting for 97.6% of all tax-related entities in China, making significant contributions to stabilizing the fundamental business landscape, it said.

In the first four months of 2025, private sector taxpayers, including private enterprises and individual businesses, benefited from 351.88 billion yuan in tax cuts and rebates and fee reductions under major policies supporting technological innovation and manufacturing development, accounting for 64.6% of the total benefits, the department noted.

The Private Economy Promotion Law will be actively implemented to strictly enforce preferential tax and fee policies, and enhance tax service quality to help private sector entities increase vitality, thereby further playing their crucial role in stabilizing employment, enterprises, markets, and expectations, said a STA official.

(By Zhang Dongfang)