Steel products made by Jin Gang Holding are ready to be delivered. The company is on the 2023 China top 500 and Shanxi top 100 lists for private businesses. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Shanxi's private economy is showing strong growth momentum, with the emergence of a number of industry-leading players and overall improvement in the competitiveness of privately run enterprises, according to local officials and industry insiders.

The 2023 Shanxi Summit for Top 100 Private Businesses, which was held in late October in Taiyuan, the capital city of the province, released the 2023 lists of Shanxi's top 100 private enterprises, top 30 private manufacturers, top 20 private service providers and top five privately run digital service platforms.

Prior to the event, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce released the 2023 list of China's top 500 private businesses. Shanxi has eight businesses on the list – the number stays the same as last year but the enterprises have seen a rise in the ranking on average.

"In Shanxi, the top 100 list indicates the growing competitiveness of private businesses, which is manifested in the rising thresholds for included companies in terms of revenue and profitability," Chen Xuzhong, Party secretary of the Shanxi Federation of Industry and Commerce, said at the summit.

According to Chen, the 2022 revenue threshold for entering the list was 3.31 billion yuan ($464.72 million), up 22.09 percent compared with that of the previous list released last year. In total, the top 100 businesses' combined business revenue in 2022 was 1.23 trillion yuan, growing 15.31 percent from that of the previous list.

The official added that the top 100's total assets amounted to 1.15 trillion yuan in 2022, an increase of 15.99 percent year-on-year and 2.68 times that of seven years ago.

It is worth mentioning that the total tax payment from the top 100 reached 73.02 billion yuan last year, growing 47.33 percent from the previous year, and their total number of employees hit 383,500, increasing 6.26 percent year-on-year.

Top of the list was Pengfei Group, a company based in the city of Lyuliang. Its business revenue in 2022 was 102.97 billion yuan, growing 19.46 percent year-on-year. This company, the leading player in Shanxi's hydrogen industry chain, is also the first private business in the province with business revenue surpassing the 100 billion yuan bench mark.

Jing Puqiu, chairwoman of the Shanxi Federation of Industry and Commerce and Shanxi Chamber of Commerce, said that the top 100 private businesses have also played a crucial role in Shanxi's economic transformation, high-quality development and digitalization.

She noted that a great number of the companies are from the advanced manufacturing industries, which are injecting new vigor in smart manufacturing, industrial digitalization, electronics, new energy development and other cutting-edge sectors.

Nanye Industry Group based in the city of Changzhi is the only electronics company in Shanxi entering the China top 500 and Shanxi top 100 lists for private businesses. The company is an industry leader in Shanxi, boasting one of China's most complete industry chains in LED development and production.

Wang Yuan, president of Huaxiang Group, another company on the top 100 list, said that the growing strength of Shanxi's private businesses can be largely attributed to the improving business environment in the province.

He said over the past few years, Shanxi's authorities and governments at various levels have mapped a number of favorable policies to assist the development of enterprises, which include deepening administrative approval reform, streamlining business registration and approval procedures, and offering whole-process assistance to help businesses grow.

The entrepreneurs' confidence is shown in the 2022 statistics. That year saw Shanxi's total number of private business entities reach 3.89 million, growing 26.5 percent from the previous year.

Li Lian contributed to this story.