Zheng Qiugen, a businessman based in east China's Zhejiang Province, is busy preparing to establish a life insurance firm, a joint venture of private enterprises.

Like many of his entrepreneur peers, Zheng is seeking new opportunities for business expansion after the Chinese government earlier this year published guidelines on the deployment of private capital in the public sector.

The guidelines, the first governmental blueprint for the growth of the private sector in the country in more than 50 years, were regarded as having opened the lid on the "forbidden" areas which were once only open to state-run enterprises.

China encourages and supports the participation of private businesses in the infrastructure sector, in industries previously monopolized by state-owned ventures, in public service sectors and in any other areas which are not forbidden by law, the guidelines said.

"The government has given the green light, now it's high time for us to show what we can do," Zheng said.

The guidelines are only the first step in China's attempt to open its public sector to private capital, and entrepreneurs are waiting for more.

Some entrepreneurs complained that the guidelines only gave them something to see, while what they want is something to touch.

The government, however, is making detailed regulations to facilitate private business access to the public sector, said Wang Yuanzhi, an official from the State Development and Reform Commission, at an on-going forum on the growth of the private sector held in Hefei, capital of eastern Anhui Province.

In recent months, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Railways and the General Administration of Civil Aviation (CAAC) issued detailed regulations on the entry of private capital into the insurance, railway and aviation industries.

Local governmental departments also made similar regulations.

Private business, even farmers selling eggs and poultry to one another, were taboo in China until the country shifted to the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s.

The private sector was then considered a useful complement to the public sector. Over the ensuing two decades, the country's central authorities gave increasing recognition to the private sector.

One of the resolutions of the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1997 was to seek growth in both the public and the non-public sectors.

And in 2002, the party in power vowed in its 16th National Congress to encourage and support the development of the private sector.

With all the encouraging policies, private companies can now gather a momentum to enter areas once off-limits to them, said Fang Zhaoben, a professor of management with the prestigious Chinese University of Science and Technogy based in Hefei.

On March 11, China's first privately-owned airline Okay launched its maiden flight in the northern municipality of Tianjin, breaking the state monopoly in the sector.

Two other private airlines, Yinglian and Yingan, went into operation after Okay, and the Junyao Group, an elite private enterprise based in eastern Zhejiang Province, got approval from CAAC in July to set up an express airline whose flights are expected to cover the country's eastern sector.

Following a stock transfer, the formerly state-owned Shenzhen Airlines became a private enterprise earlier this month.

The oil sector is no longer entirely in state hands after the Changlian Petroleum Holding Company was established at the end of June.

After an injection of 5 billion yuan (US$625 million) from about 50 private enterprises, the company hopes to boost its fixed assets to 500 billion yuan (US$62.5 billion) within three to five years, according to board chairman Gong Jialong.

In spite of all these encouraging policies, however, private businesses may still feel handicapped both because their strength does not equal their ambitions and because of the long-existing bias against them in business management departments, said Prof. Fang.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2005)