Private sector enterprises comprised 40% of the top 100 listed Chinese companies by market value in the second half of last year, led by high-profile technology firms involved in China’s artificial intelligence (AI) boom, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. That represented an increase of 2.4 percentage points from the first half of last year. The data confirms the “three-year relative decline of the private sector’s share between mid-2021 and mid-2024 did not mark a permanent reversal of its spectacular rise over the previous decade”, it said in the report, which includes companies listed in China or overseas and is compiled twice a year. The private sector’s share peaked at 55.4% in mid-2021, it added.
In the first half of last year, established technology giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), Xiaomi and BYD were joined in the top 100 ranking by a growing number of consumer brands – including Pop Mart, Mixue Bingcheng and Laopu Gold. Several new hi-tech manufacturers from the private sector joined the list in the second half of 2025, including optical transceiver maker Eoptolink Technology, graphics processing unit producer Moore Threads Technology, circuit-board maker Victory Giant Technology, and AI chipmaker MetaX Integrated Circuits.
“China’s political leaders have publicly celebrated the rise of these private-sector champions of the country’s ‘new economy’, one in which growth will be fueled more by hi-tech manufacturing, decarbonization and innovation, and less by housing and infrastructure development,” the report said.
In February last year, President Xi Jinping held a high-profile meeting in Beijing with leading entrepreneurs – the first such meeting since 2018 – and vowed that China would protect the interests of entrepreneurs and guarantee a level playing field for private firms. Following similar signals from Xi and other senior officials, a 78-article law on the promotion of the private economy took effect in May last year. The government has also opened more sectors to private investment – including railways and nuclear power – allowing private firms to compete against state-owned enterprises for contracts for the first time. Private enterprises remain a pillar of China’s economy, accounting for more than 50% of tax revenue, 60% of gross domestic product (GDP) and about 80% of urban employment. Beijing has stepped up policy support for the private sector in an effort to cultivate new growth drivers and strengthen the innovation capacity of private technology firms, providing greater leverage in competition with the United States.
Private investment fell 6.4% year-on-year in 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced. Excluding investment in real estate development, it dropped 1,9%, the South China Morning Post reports.
