Established by several youth intellectuals years earlier and now the largest non-governmental corporation in Shanghai, Fosun Group, though being a non-public enterprise, realized a total sales income of 28.13 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) in 2004, with the net profit accounting for 2.633 billion yuan (US$318 million) and tax paid 3.47 billion yuan (US$419 million). Once more, Fosun Group enjoys the reputation as one of the non-public enterprises that paid the highest tax in China.

According to the statistics released by National Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of the private economy in Shanghai last year was improved to a great extent. Among the municipal gross product, the added value of public economy recorded 455.028 billion yuan (US$54.95 billion), a year-on-year increase of 9.8 percent; the added value of private economy stood at 289.999 billion yuan (US$35 billion), up 20.4 percent from last year, making up 38.9 percent of the gross product in the city from former 36.5 percent.

The non-public economy in Shanghai, which was in the stages of low, small and loose over a long period of time, is beginning to stride forward towards pluralism, high grade as well as large scale. Particularly some large-scale non-public enterprises with high technological content and strong market competitiveness not only comprehensively heightened the grade of private economy in Shanghai, but also fully convinced Shanghai residence of the strength of non-governmental enterprises.

Faced with the powerful state-owned economy and flourishing foreign investment, the private economy in Shanghai has once had too many difficulties to cope with and was long in a state of low, small and loose, which was called "grass was hard to grow under the shadow of big tress", thus forming huge contrast with those in neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. In recent years, by making good use of its unique geographic advantages and rich economic resources, Shanghai Municipality supports the development of non-governmental economy and encourages the certain enterprises to grow bigger and stronger.

The year of 2004 witnessed the fast growth of private economy in Shanghai. The daily increase of the non-public enterprises in Shanghai maintains at 255 and by the end of 2004, a total of 385,000 private enterprises have registered in Shanghai, up 31.9 percent from last year.

The scale of Shanghai private enterprises has also registered steady growth besides the increase in number. The total registered capital of Shanghai private enterprises topped 568.15 billion yuan (US$68.61 billion), a year-on-year increase of 36.1 percent.

(Peopledaily.com March 9, 2005)