Small businesses take up 95.6% of Chinese firms

China had 7.85 million small and micro-sized enterprises in the secondary and tertiary sectors as of the end of 2013, accounting for 95.6 percent of enterprises in the two sectors, official data showed on Tuesday.

Small businesses provided 147.3 million jobs, accounting for 50.4 percent of the total in the two sectors, according to results of the 3rd National Economic Census published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Such firms held 29.6 percent of total assets, said the NBS.

Industrial enterprises with no more than 30 million yuan (4.9 million U.S. dollars) in assets and no more than 100 employees are classified as small and micro-sized firms.

For other sectors, companies with no more than 10 million yuan in assets and no more than 80 employees fall into this category.

China has rolled out a string of favorable measures for small businesses, including easy market entry, tax breaks and reduced red tape, to support their development.