guangdong, a global production base, leads in the total number of foreign-funded enterprises nationwide, according to a press conference held by the guangdong provincial administration for market regulation on tuesday.

the province had boasted 199,000 registered foreign-funded enterprises by the end of 2023, accounting for a quarter of the country’s total and increasing 5.1% year on year. a total of 21,000 new foreign-funded enterprises were registered last year, demonstrating a growth of 40.8% year on year, gong xianping, an official from the administration, said at the press conference in guangzhou.

guangdong now has the country’s largest number of business entities, which stands at 18.07 million and accounts for one-tenth of the country’s total. over 1.73 million new business entities were registered in the province last year, posting the biggest growth in five years.

it also holds the top position in the total number of enterprises. the province had 7.808 million registered enterprises, constituting one-seventh of the national total, up by 8.5% year on year. in 2023, 1.204 million new enterprises were registered, representing a 15.1% growth compared to the previous year.

further, guangdong has 7.248 million registered private enterprises, the largest number in china and representing a 9.4% year-on-year increase. it boasts 10.199 million self-employed businesses, reflecting a 12.2% year-on-year increase. private business entities account for over 96% of the total number of business entities in the province.

over 8,000 hong kong and macao-funded legal entities were registered in guangdong last year, an increase of 64.4% year on year, which brought the province’s total number of hong kong and macao-funded legal entities to more than 96,000 by the end of 2023, up by 15.5% year on year.

in shenzhen, the number of business entities has exceeded 4 million, according to the city’s commerce bureau. among the total, 1.51 million, or 37.74%, are self-employed businesses. foreign-invested enterprises in the city account for about 2% of all business entities. since issuing the first foreign-funded enterprise business license in the chinese mainland in 1981, shenzhen has seen over 100,000 foreign-invested enterprises registered so far.