BEIJING, March 6 -- The number of private enterprises in China had reached 56.707 million as of the end of January, data from the State Administration for Market Regulation showed on Thursday.

This figure is 5.2 times the size of 2012, the administration said.

In particular, the number of private high-tech enterprises in China has soared from 28,000 in 2012 to over 420,000 -- with their proportion in terms of the country's high-tech enterprises rising from 62.4 percent to more than 92 percent, according to the data.