A total of 140,190 market entities were registered in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province, from January to September. [Photo/cnnb.com.cn] 

A total of 140,190 market entities were registered in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province, from January to September. 

This is an increase of 2.6 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Ningbo municipal bureau of market supervision. 

As of the end of September, Ningbo was home to over 1.07 million market entities, up 8.5 percent year on year. The number of private market entities in the city stood at nearly 1.04 million, accounting for 96.4 percent of the city's total. This includes 406,800 private companies and 628,800 individually-owned businesses.

The majority (87.3 percent) of market entities registered in Ningbo in the first three quarters were involved in wholesale and retail, manufacturing, scientific research and technical services, leasing and business services, and construction.

After the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic, local authorities implemented a series of measures to help small and micro-sized enterprises and individually-owned businesses weather the crisis.

In the first half of this year, a total of 34,034 tenants were exempt from 198 million yuan ($28.69 million) in rent, according to official data.

The recently released China Business Climate Report 2020 ranked Ningbo as one of China’s 15 model cities in terms of business climate.