BEIJING, Dec. 16 -- China has more enterprises in the service sector, marking improvement in its economic structure under the "new normal", the latest official data showed on Tuesday.

The number of companies in the service sector was nearly triple that of the secondary industry by the end of 2013, according to results of the latest national economic census published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

China is striving to adjust its economic structure to ensure sustainable growth after years of rapid advance as a continuing slowdown has prompted the world's second largest economy to shift into an economic "new normal" focused more on quality.

The economic census revealed that there were 10.86 million enterprises engaged in the two industries by the end of last year, up 52.9 percent from 2008.

Enterprises in the tertiary industry took up 74.7 percent, up 5.7 percent from five years ago, while the proportion of companies in the secondary sector shrank to 25.3 percent.

Total assets of companies in the two sectors amounted to 466.8 trillion yuan (76.3 trillion U.S. dollars) in the last year, rising markedly by 124.6 percent from 2008. The service sector accounted for 73.9 percent.

The NBS director Ma Jiantang said the census results showed the improvement in economic structure and people's well-being in the recent five years, despite lingering impacts from the global financial crisis.

By sectors, the wholesale and retail sector saw the most companies, making 25.9 percent of the total, followed by manufacturing of 20.7 percent and public management, social security and social organizations of 14 percent.

The economic census also showed some 166,000 firms had business concerning strategic emerging sector, representing 2 percent of the total.

In addition, more than half of the companies were located in China's prosperous eastern regions, while those from less-developed middle and western areas accounted for no more than 20 percent each. The northeastern region, China's old industrial base, took up merely less than 7 percent in terms of company number.

China launched the third national economic census in 2013, covering the secondary and tertiary industries. The first two economic censuses were conducted in 2004 and 2008 respectively.