The 2023 China Private Economy Development (Taizhou) Forum commences in Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province on March 26. [Photo/WeChat account: tzfb001]

The 2023 China Private Economy Development (Taizhou) Forum commenced in Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province on March 26.

Taizhou, the host city, is known in China for its robust private sector, a prime engine behind it prosperous economic development.

Private companies, which make up 98.6 percent of Taizhou's total, generated 80 percent of the city's GDP, 86.2 percent of its tax revenue and 91.5 percent of its foreign trade, obtained 93.5 percent of the city's newly authorized invention patents, as well as created over 90 percent of its employment opportunities in 2022, official statistics show.

Yi Lianhong, Party chief of Zhejiang, and Xu Lejiang, deputy head of the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attended the opening ceremony.

The forum also witnessed the establishment of the Taizhou Research Base of China Private Economic Research Society as well as the release of authoritative reports.

Three Taizhou industrial clusters made the 2023 list of top 100 industrial clusters in China, and six companies from the city were listed among the top 100 private employers in Zhejiang in 2022, according to two of the reports published during the event.