Corporate entertainers are losing their tables in China's restaurants to families, couples and individuals who dine out at their own expense.

Private diners now accounted for more than 60 percent of the retail turnover of China's catering industry, while the proportion of corporate or public expenditure consumption had dwindled to 40 percent, said Di Jiankai, director general of the Department of Commercial Reform and Development of the Ministry of Commerce.

Previously corporate and public consumption had always surpassed 50 percent.

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