The growth rate of market entities is a vivid embodiment of a city's economic development. In recent years, Zhongshan has streamlined the administration and delegating ability of enterprises while strengthening regulation and optimizing service to accelerate the construction of a fair, transparent, and efficient interim and ex-post supervision system with clearly defined rights and responsibilities, and has strived to create an international,  market-oriented business environment, which has greatly stimulated market vitality.

So far, the number of market entities in Zhongshan exceeds 510,000, some 180,000 more from the end of 2016. With 4.42 million permanent residents, there are 115 market entities per 1,000 people.

At present, there are 23 A-share listed companies in Zhongshan, 20 of which are listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Recently, 64 enterprises were included in the cultivation program for municipal-level specialized, innovative enterprises and champion enterprises.

Three companies had an operating income exceeding 10 billion yuan in 2020, including Ming Yang Smart Energy having an annual operating income of over 20 billion yuan, MLS Co Ltd 17.38 billion yuan, and Huali Industrial Group 13.931 billion yuan.

By the end of September 2021, Zhongshan had 9,298 valid invention patents, 214,500 valid registered trademarks, and 344 registered Madrid trademarks. "Zhongshan Wuguishan Mountain Eaglewood" was approved to register as Zhongshan's first geographical indication trademark.

At the same time, Zhongshan has made breakthroughs in the construction of drug import ports, with the port-based drug administration and port-based drug inspection agency having passed national assessments. Zhongshan has also seen rapid development of the bio-pharmaceutical industry. City's first new monoclonal antibody drug – Penpulimab Injection produced by Akeso Biopharma Co Ltd - has been approved for marketing.