China has more than 225,000 private companies...

China has more than 225,000 private companies and they were increasingly important to economic growth, according to the Workers’ Daily.

The newspaper said these concerns employed more than 3.6 million workers and accounted for 1% of the nation’s industrial production. Only companies with more than eight workers were tallied, leaving out numerous individual entrepreneurs.

China’s communist leaders began a series of economic reforms in 1978, encouraging growth in the small private sector and adopting policies once shunned as capitalist.