Shenzhen celebrated its third Entrepreneurs’ Day yesterday, with a variety of activities being held citywide to pay tribute to entrepreneurs.

The city’s entrepreneur representatives, experts, scholars and government officials spoke about Shenzhen’s reform and development, opportunities and challenges at a forum jointly hosted by the city’s united front work department and Shenzhen Federation of Industry & Commerce yesterday morning.

At a separate seminar attended by Shenzhen Party chief Wang Weizhong yesterday, 16 entrepreneurs put forward their suggestions on technological innovation, industrial development, talent policies and business environment improvement.

They said as one of the most economically active cities, Shenzhen has witnessed the mushrooming growth of private businesses, which is credited to the highly efficient and quality local public services.

Shenzhen introduced its first Entrepreneurs’ Day on Nov. 1, 2019, as an effort to boost its entrepreneurial spirit and create a favorable entrepreneurial environment, becoming the first city in the country to do so.

According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, a total of 134 Shenzhen enterprises have made it onto this year’s list of the country’s third batch of “little giant companies” — fast-growing innovative small- and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs, ranking third in China.

The accumulative number of these Shenzhen enterprises reached 169, ranking fourth in China and first in Guangdong Province.

A week ago, 22 Shenzhen companies entered the 2021 Top 100 New Industrial Enterprises List by China Enterprises Evaluation Association. Huawei topped the list while Foxconn and BYD entered the top 10.

Meanwhile, 29 Shenzhen enterprises were listed among China’s top 500 private enterprises in 2021, ranking first in Guangdong.

On Wednesday, Hurun Research Institute released its 2021 Hurun 100 Rich List. The number of Shenzhen entrepreneurs on the list increased to 301, ranking second in China.

These rankings and achievements embody the boldness and hard work of numerous Shenzhen entrepreneurs, and reflect that the city and its enterprises and entrepreneurs are in a mutually reinforcing relationship, a Shenzhen Special Zone Daily report said yesterday.

Official data showed that as of the end of this August, there had been more than 3.7 million business entities in Shenzhen, up 7.2 percent year on year. Shenzhen ranked first in the country in terms of entrepreneurship density, with 13 businesses owned per 100 people.

The city now boasts 2.345 million enterprises, compared to 839 in 1980, when the special economic zone was established.

“Shenzhen is a city imbued with the spirit of the rule of law and the spirit of respecting and caring for entrepreneurs, which can make us feel at ease to take root, innovate and start businesses,” an entrepreneur named Zhang Xin told the Daily.

“We will not stop innovating. There are too many of our peers and young people around us on the same playing field. We will be left out at the slightest carelessness,” another Shenzhen entrepreneur said.