A total of 18 companies from Ningbo made the list of the top 100 Zhejiang private enterprises in 2021, which was released on Sept 23, according to local media reports.

Jointly released by the Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision Bureau and the Zhejiang Federation of Industry and Commerce, the list evaluated private enterprises across the province primarily based on their business income last year. Indicators like net profits, net assets, and taxes paid for the year, as well as enterprise credit were also taken into account.

The 18 listed companies from Ningbo included Youngor Group (10th), Ningbo Jintian Investment Holding Co Ltd (11th), China-Base Ningbo Group Co Ltd (13th), Aux Group Co Ltd (16th), and Zhejiang Future Investment Co Ltd (17th).

The threshold to enter the list increased from 11.94 billion yuan in 2020 to 14.98 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) in 2021, an increase of 8.8 percent year-on-year.

In 2020, the turnover of the top 100 private companies in Zhejiang grew 16.9 percent year-on-year to 5.13 trillion yuan.

Net assets and profits among the companies on the list both saw considerable growth. Last year, their net assets totaled 1.55 trillion yuan, up 25.8 percent, while net profits surged 23.8 percent year-on-year to 202.2 billion yuan.

Notably, R&D spending among the top 100 enterprises reached 81.3 billion yuan in 2020, an increase of 16.6 percent over previous years. 

The number of valid invention patents and trademarks in the Madrid system held by companies on the list stood at 17,608 and 2,778 respectively.

In terms of geographical distribution, Hangzhou topped the list with 33 enterprises, followed by Ningbo, Shaoxing (13), Wenzhou (10), Taizhou (7), Jiaxing (6), Huzhou (5), Jinhua (5), Lishui (2), and Zhoushan (1).