Over the past four decades, the economic structure of Shanxi province has undergone dramatic changes. The proportion of the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy changed from 20.7:58.5:20.8 in 1978 to 4.6:43.7:51.7 in 2017.

The tertiary sector has become an increasingly important factor in the province's economic growth. In 2015, the sector exceeded the secondary sector in terms of its contribution to regional GDP for the first time, making it the province’s largest sector. In 2017, it accounted for 51.7 percent of regional GDP, an increase of 30.9 percentage points over 1978.

Over the past 40 years, the province has completed total fixed asset investment of more than 10.5 trillion yuan ($1.51 trillion), an average annual increase of 18.9 percent.

And private capital is now the driving force behind investment in the province, accounting for 60.7 percent of total fixed asset investment and covering almost all industries. The investment proportion of the three sectors of the economy has changed from 0.8:61.4:37.8 in 1978 to 8.9:36.8:54.3 in 2017, with the proportion of investment in the primary and tertiary sectors up by 8.1 and 16.5 percentage points respectively.

The non-public sector continues to develop from being a small and supplementary part of China's economy in 1978, to being a major national economic force today –– with the number of private companies in the province hitting 390,400 in 2017, an average increase of 30.7 percent from 2011.