民营经济一般是指由个体工商户和私营企业组成的经济,泛指一切非公有经济。民营经济是国民经济发展的动力之源,一般而言,民营经济发展好的地区其经济增长就很强劲,反之就很微弱。西部经济发展缓慢,一个很重要的原因就是西部民营经济发展缓慢、规模小。1999年全国有个体工商户31 The private economy generally refers to the economy composed of individual industrial and commercial households and private enterprises, and refers to all non-public sectors of the economy. The private economy is the source of the national economic development. Generally, the economic growth in the regions where the private economy is developing is very strong. On the contrary, the growth is very weak. A very important reason for the slow economic development in western China is that the development of the private economy in the west is slow and small in scale. There are individual industrial and commercial households nationwide in 1999