This year China will begin to release official statistics of private businesses for the first time in over half a century.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will create methods of gathering sample surveys about private investment projects and small-scale construction companies this year, and conduct nationwide surveys on small and medium-sized wholesale and retail companies and catering enterprises.

The bureau will also conduct experimental sample surveys in rural areas where household businesses thrive.

NBS official Li Qiang said that most of the private enterprisesin China will be covered by the official statistics system in three years. In five to six years, all private businesses in the country will come under the umbrella of a national statistics system.

For decades, China's official statistics only includes state-owned and collective enterprises, the mainstays of the country's economy. However, private enterprises have grown rapidly in the past 20 years, and now account for nearly 20 percent of the country's industrial output.

Since 1998, the NBS has set up data banks for enterprises of various types of ownership, drafted detailed plan for surveying private enterprises, and already started conducting surveys in several industries.

Li said that since China now has more than 1.2 million private enterprises, the only possible method of gathering data from them is via sample surveys. The central government and some local governments have already earmarked funds for this work.