China sees 10,000 new firms every day: official

GUANGZHOU - China sees more than 10,000 firms born every day amid government support for entrepreneurship, a vice minister said on Saturday.

Most of the firms are small enterprises. Data was collected last March through the end of August this year and about 6 million firms were registered during the period, said Xin Guobin, vice minister of Industry and Information Technology.

The government has been cutting taxes and fees, helping small firms save about 48.6 billion yuan ($7.93 billion) in the first half of the year, Xin said.

Lending to small firms stood at 16.2 trillion yuan at the end of June, up 14.5 percent from last year, Xin said.

However, he admitted small firms are facing challenges amid economic slowdown, slumping product prices, rising costs and production overcapacity.