A merchant demonstrates a toy camera to a Spanish trader at Yiwu International Trade Market in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, on April 15, 2025. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Zhejiang province had 7.49 million registered self-employed businesses as of December 2025, up 5.55 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Zhejiang Administration for Market Regulation.

In 2025, the province issued loans totaling about 275.5 billion yuan ($39.62 billion) to 259,000 self-employed businesses. Average approval time for offline lending was shortened from around 10 days to just two or three days, easing financing pressure for small operators.

Zhejiang has also strengthened regular communication mechanisms with self-employed businesses and rolled out more targeted support measures. Initiatives such as the "large firms support small shops" program encourage collaboration between companies and individual businesses.

Working with the Zhejiang Province Human Resources and Social Security Department, the province has continued its skills-based development program for individual workers, helping them boost capacity, income, and efficiency through training.

So far, 1,728 well-known companies have been paired with 109,400 self-employed businesses. Zhejiang has also set up 60 skills training institutions and 15 online training platforms, providing training to about 331,800 attendances.