Taixing – the county-level city administered by Taizhou in East China's Jiangsu province – added 2,675 new individual businesses in the first quarter, up 11.9 percent year-on-year, the largest increase in the last three years.
To date, the total number of individual businesses operating in Taixing has reached 126,570 – indicating that entrepreneurship is flourishing in the city.
In terms of industry distribution, the wholesale and retail industries accounted for nearly half the intake, while the catering and restaurant industry accounted for 9.2 percent.
Pundits say the latest trend shows that more and more individual businesses are turning to such industries as grain cultivation, aquaculture, mechanical component processing, equipment manufacturing and engineering construction.
Taixing is known to provide supportive policies for individual businesses in terms of business premises, employment and approvals – such as simplifying the registration process for individuals to enterprises.
In the last three years, Taixing had about 10,500 new individual businesses registered every year due to the impact of COVID-19, with the number in Q1 this year showing a strong start to the current year.