East China's Zhejiang province saw its small and micro-sized companies, which were generally hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, grow 12.45 percent to 2.5 million in total number in 2020, according to the latest statistics by the Zhejiang Administration for Market Regulation.

Statistics also show that the growth index for small and micro-sized companies, a comprehensive measure of their economic contribution, competence, vitality, and policy incentives, was 133.95 points in 2020, up 0.84 points from the previous year.

The province's top three cities for the 2020 index were Hangzhou, Jinhua, and Ningbo.

In 2020, sampled small and micro-sized enterprises saw a 9.64 percent year-on-year increase in total assets, 2.8 percent in total operating revenue, and 5.32 percent in total number of employees.

The percentage of recipients of university degrees and above among these companies' staff was 16.59 percent in 2020, up 5.53 percentage points from the previous year.

The province's small and micro enterprises were further exempted  66.834 billion yuan ($10.48 billion) in taxes and fees. Their bank loans totaled 788.7 billion yuan in 2020, nearly double the amount in 2019.

A total of 925,900 small and micro-sized enterprises, accounting for 37.02 percent of the provincial total, were operating in the so-called "eight trillion-yuan industries" in 2020, up 146,200 from 2019.

Prioritizing the development of the "eight trillion-yuan industries" was a guideline set out by the 2017 Zhejiang Provincial Government Work Report. The eight industries are the information, environmental protection, health, tourism, fashion, finance, high-end equipment manufacturing, and culture industries.