Small Businesses Playing Bigger Role in Central Chinese Province

WUHAN, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Small and medium-sized businesses in China's Hubei Province, a traditional industrial center, are getting more vigorous and are contributing 60 percent of the local industrial added-value output.

Some 830,000 of them are township enterprises and 40,000 are privately owned. In the township sector, small and medium-sized firms accounted for 70 percent of the total output value in 1998, and provided 1,190 yuan for each farmer, or 55 percent of the per- capita income.

Although some companies are small they have helped spur local technological renovation and have become an important source of jobs.

The Donghu High-Tech Development Zone and the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, which are the home of many private, high-tech businesses, had a combined industrial output value of 1.8 billion yuan in the first 5 months of this year, accounting for 21 percent of the province's total.