BEIJING, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- China had 6.03 million enterprises in the manufacturing sector as of the end of August, surging 5.53 percent from the end of last year, data showed.

Among them, 515,300 were related to the strategic emerging industries, accounting for 8.55 percent of the total, according to statistics from the China Organization Data Service.

The number of manufacturing companies in China's eastern region totaled 3.87 million, accounting for 64.21 percent of the total. The central region had 1.13 million manufacturing companies, followed by 755,900 and 268,300 in the western and northeastern regions, respectively, by the end of August, the data showed.

In the first eight months of this year, the number of manufacturing companies in China showed a steady growth trend, with the central region having recorded the fastest growth of 6.55 percent compared to the end of 2023.

The scale and quality of China's manufacturing enterprises have gradually improved as policies to promote the optimization and upgrading of economic structure have begun to take effect, it said.