The Zhejiang Administration for Market Regulation recently published data related to the province's market entities.

As of the end of Aug, the total number of market entities in Zhejiang was 9,064,800, up 7.3 percent year-on-year. These entities include 3,250,400 enterprises and 5,760,000 individual businesses.

Based on the 65.4 million permanent residents in Zhejiang, these figures mean that there is nearly one businessman out of every seven people in the province.

In terms of industry distribution, wholesale and retail market entities accounted for 47.41 percent of the province's total market entities, followed by manufacturing as well as accommodation and catering, which accounted for 14.65 percent and 7.46 percent respectively.

From Jan to Aug this year, 756,200 new individual businesses were established in Zhejiang, a year-on-year increase of 3.63 percent. During the same period, 484,600 individual businesses were shuttered, a decrease of 9.06 percent year-on-year. Individual businesses currently account for 64 percent of all market entities in Zhejiang.

In May this year, Zhejiang released the country's first policy to help individual businesses. The authorities also launched 25 measures to stabilize production and operation.