The launch ceremony of the National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week is staged in East China's Zhejiang province, a sub-venue of the event, on Oct 19. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]

The National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week kicked off on Oct 19 under the theme "high-quality innovation, high-level entrepreneurship and employment".

As a sub-venue of the national event, which runs through Oct 25, Zhejiang is set to host over 30 various activities across the province, both online and offline, to display achievements in mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

Zhejiang has made great strides in stimulating entrepreneurship and innovation in recent years.

Official statistics show that Zhejiang was home to 8.49 million market entities as of the end of September 2021, up 8.2 percent year-on-year.

This year, about 1.21 million market entities including 416,000 enterprises have been registered in the province so far.

Zhejiang now has 740 listed companies, among which 81 made initial public offerings this year. Ninety-six enterprises in the province have been listed among China's top 500 private enterprises, ranking first in China for 23 consecutive years.

The province also houses 13 entrepreneurship and innovation demonstration bases that are at national level, 85 at provincial level, as well as roughly 1,200 laboratories and research organs at and above provincial level.

As the host venue of the event in Zhejiang, Hangzhou's Binjiang district was designated a national demonstration base for entrepreneurship and innovation.

The district is currently home to three national engineering technology research centers, 10 national business incubators, 300 provincial R&D centers and 40 provincial key enterprise research institutes.