Private enterprise, referred to as the name of private enterprise, company or enterprise category, has different views on the concept of private enterprise in economic circles. One view is that private enterprises are legal person economic entities with private investment, private operation, private enjoyment of investment income and private undertaking of business risks. Another view is that relatively state-owned enterprises can be divided into state-owned private enterprises and private private enterprises according to different forms of ownership. The property rights of state-owned private enterprises belong to the state, and the lessee shall, in accordance with the requirements of the market economy, raise funds by itself, operate independently, be responsible for its own profits and losses and bear its own risks. Private enterprises refer to individual enterprises and private enterprises.
"Private" is a word with China characteristics. Private assets in a narrow sense refer to the private property of China citizens, excluding state-owned assets and foreign assets (assets owned by overseas owners). Therefore, private enterprises refer to all enterprises except state-owned enterprises, state-owned assets holding enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises in China, including sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies and joint stock limited companies. From the perspective of management and control rights of enterprises, limited liability companies and joint stock limited companies that contain a small part of state-owned assets and/or foreign-invested assets but do not have management and control rights can also be called "private enterprises". "Private enterprises" in a narrow sense only refers to private enterprises and joint ventures with private enterprises as the main body. Due to historical reasons, the concept of "private enterprise" is not easy to get rid of discrimination. Investors, operators, employees and social workers who are interested in promoting the development of private enterprises tend to use the neutral name "private enterprise", which makes "private enterprise" another name for private enterprises in many cases, and this paper also agrees with this statement. The definition of private enterprises in this paper mainly lies in its narrow sense. In a broad sense, the definition of private enterprises in China is only relative to state-owned enterprises, but it is compatible with any non-state-owned enterprises, including state-owned and holding enterprises. So the concept of private enterprises can be summarized as follows: all non-state-owned enterprises are private enterprises.