Nearly 40 percent of Shanghai college graduates surveyed this year want to start their own businesses, an increase of 10.6 percentage points from 2015, according to data released by the Shanghai team of the National Bureau of Statistics on June 15.

Among the 3,518 respondents, 59.8 percent said they are in a good entrepreneurial environment. Some credited the government's preferential policy support, while some said they just like taking on challenges.

In terms of professions, most of those surveyed (69.6 percent) said they would like to pursue careers in emerging industries, while others preferred traditional fields.

Nearly 45 percent of graduates chose to focus on advanced technology in future startups－28.5 percent were interested in new emerging tech and 16.3 percent expected to develop a new technology through their business.

Compared with a survey conducted in 2016, fewer students－dropping from nearly 50 percent to 24.2 percent－chose to join family industries or businesses run by friends.

As for the location, more than half (58.7 percent) of the respondents said they intended to start businesses in Shanghai, while 18.8 percent chose cities in neighboring provinces in the Yangtze River Delta region such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, a jump of 4.5 percentage points year-on-year.

A total of 16 percent regarded the COVID-19 pandemic as both a challenge and an opportunity, and they said they intended to seize chances to start a business.

However, less than 5 percent said they would start a business immediately after graduation this year. More than half (54 percent) said they preferred to take time to plan and start a business within 10 years.