China's market regulator to step up support to self-employed businesses

A vendor waits for customers at her stall of a local market in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, March 8, 2022. (Xinhua/Hu Zhixuan)

China will beef up support to self-employed businesses, which make up two thirds of the country's market players and create a large number of job opportunities, according to the country's market regulator.

There are now 169 million market entities in China, of which 114 million have been registered as self-employed businesses, data from the State Administration for Market Regulation shows.

The self-employed businesses have created almost 300 million jobs nationwide, the data shows.

The administration said it will seek to boost the development of self-employed businesses and offer technical support to raise quality, taking a range of different measures according to the characteristics, scale and revenue levels of those businesses.