BEIJING — China had 103 million registered individually-owned businesses by the end of last year, a record high under supportive policies to energize market entities, official data showed on Jan 27.

New registrations in 2021 stood at 19.7 million, up 17.2 percent year-on-year, well beyond the 11.8-percent average annual growth rate from 2012 to 2021, data from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) showed.

"No significant withdrawals from the market were observed in 2021," Pu Chun, an official with the SAMR, told a press conference.

Pu said individually-owned businesses accounted for about two-thirds of all market entities in China, and they employed 276 million people.

Around 90 percent of these businesses are service providers, mainly engaged in retail, hospitality, catering, and resident services.

The data on Jan 27 also showed that China had 154 million market entities by the end of last year, up 11.1 percent from 2020.

A breakdown by industries revealed speedier recovery of businesses hard-hit by COVID, with 3.06 million new market entities registered in the catering and hospitality sector in 2021, up 14.8 percent from a year ago.

The culture, sports, and entertainment industry saw 523,000 new businesses founded last year, an increase of 44.1 percent year-on-year, the data showed.

China's improved business environment and super large market helped attract 61,000 new foreign-invested firms in 2021, up 23.3 percent year-on-year.

The country has vowed to wield its microeconomic policies to continuously stimulate the vitality of market entities in 2022, according to the annual Central Economic Work Conference held last December.