Workers operate on a production line at the jumbo bag workshop of a packaging company in Yuping Dong autonomous county of Tongren, Southwest China's Guizhou province, Jan 4, 2026. [Photo/Xinhua]

Southwest China's Guizhou province plans to fully support the development of private enterprises to bolster its comparatively weak private sector, Governor Li Bingjun said.

At a conference on promoting the high-quality development of business entities on the first working day of 2026, officials warned the province would take a firm stance against any actions that hinder business operations or damage Guizhou's business environment. The meeting emphasized that Guizhou will safeguard the lawful rights and interests of all enterprises, whether state-owned or private.

According to Guizhou Daily, private entities account for 97.2 percent of all business entities in the province and provide more than 60 percent of jobs.

By the end of September 2025, taxable private-sector market entities in the province had increased by 21.9 percent year-on-year. Private enterprises grew by 17.3 percent year-on-year and represented 93.2 percent of the province's corporate entities, making them the dominant force in the business sector.

"Guizhou can nurture world-class companies. Our entry into global capital markets proves that," said Chen Dafang, general manager of CNGR Advanced Material Co, which supplies new energy materials for lithium batteries, after listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Nov 17.

To better support the private economy, a draft revision of Guizhou's private sector promotion regulations was reviewed on Dec 1, according to the Guizhou Provincial People's Congress. The draft includes provisions to protect and support private business development, covering areas such as fair competition, facilitation of investment and financing, technological innovation, standardized operations and service guarantees, and rights protection.

Market-access optimization has been a provincial priority. A staff member at an energy firm in Wangmo county said a registration process that once took about two weeks now takes three days.

The 2024 revision of Guizhou's measures for registering power-market entities removed the requirement of government approval from the entry process. New energy companies can register directly with the trading center, cutting market entry time from 15 days to three days. The amendment enabled 21 new renewable energy firms to enter the market.

The latest draft seeks to strengthen rules on fair competition. It states that, aside from a negative list for market entry, all types of economic organizations, including private firms, may enter markets on equal legal footing.

It prohibits county-level and above governments and their departments from creating disguised market-entry barriers through measures such as extra filings, registrations or annual inspections.

The regulations also address public concerns about the "distant-water fishing" incidents — a term referring to improper cross-regional law enforcement. The draft explicitly bans unlawful cross-regional arrests of entrepreneurs and the seizure, freezing or transfer of out-of-province corporate and personal assets.

It calls for standardized procedures and an improved system for cross-regional law-enforcement assistance, stressing that cross-regional enforcement must respect legal authority, conditions and procedures and must not be abused for economic gain.