When entering the optical fiber communication field in the early 1990s, ZTT Group was barely known by the market. Today it is a listed high-tech enterprise with more than 30 subsidiaries and 8,000 employees.

Based in Nantong in East China’s Jiangsu province, ZTT Group has developed nearly 100 series and more than 1,000 varieties of fiber-optic communication and power-transmission products. The privately owned group boasts 20 billion yuan ($3.23 billion) in annual sales revenue and in excess of $250 million in export value.

Given the fact that China’s economy has entered the “new normal”, with slower but more sustainable economic growth, the company also faces new challenges and will upgrade its products, said Xue Jiping, ZTT’s chairman.

Including ZTT, there are 18 companies in Nantong that were ranked among the top 100 private enterprises in Jiangsu province last year. The number is larger than any other city in the affluent province.

Ding Dawei, Party secretary of Nantong city, said the local government would try its best to support the development of private businesses and encourage entrepreneurship, which is also a requirement of the central government.

A creation made using a 3D printer produced by Jiangsu Pynetech Co Ltd. The city welcomed 18,000 new private companies in 2014. [Ji Xinjian?for China Daliy]  

“Developing private business is not a solo composed by entrepreneurs, but a chorus with the participation of the local Party committee, government departments and social organizations,” he said.

According to Ding, the local government will provide better public services to private companies to stimulate the economies.

Private businesses in Nantong saw rapid growth in 2014, even though the country’s economy faced downward pressure. A total of 18,000 companies were newly established, with registered capital of 88.26 billion yuan.

Statistics released by the Nantong city government show that private businesses contributed 71.8 percent of the city’s tax revenue and 89 percent of the city’s employment.

The city government’s support of private businesses dates back more than a decade to when Nantong city’s Party committee and the city government made a goal to “build up a city with the largest private business of Jiangsu province” in 2003.

Since then, government leaders have dedicated themselves to the development of private businesses, and all discriminative policies towards private companies were ordered to be abolished at that time.

The city government also reformed its evaluation system of officials to get them to provide better services to private businesses.

The government’s efforts paid off. Nantong has built up the country’s largest trade market for textile products, with 2,800 private companies and more than 100,000 workers in the textile industry.

With a decade worth of development, the number of private companies with more than 10 billion yuan in assets has risen from two in 2004 to 24 in 2014. Some new industries, including smart equipment, biological pharmaceuticals, new-energy, new materials, vehicle components and electricity components have developed quickly in recent years.

Traditional industries of construction, textiles, electricity tools and shipyard construction have also seen rapid growth. There are more than 2,000 private companies with 1.6 billion workers in the construction industry in Nantong and 20 of them were ranked among the top 100 construction companies in Jiangsu province in May last year.

Given the country’s rapid growth of e-commerce, the Nantong city government put forward a series of favorable policies to support the development of e-commerce since 2012.

In August last year, the Chuanjiang township government set up an industrial park for small- and medium-size textile companies with online businesses. The companies can receive rental subsidies, training courses and other services from the local government.

Last year, Nantong city’s online trade volume reached 15 billion yuan and Chuanjiang township was named as one of the country’s 19 “Taobao townships” by alibaba.com, China’s biggest online trading group that owns popular e-trading platform taobao.com.

Contact the writers at dingcongrong@chinadaily.com.cn