In the past three years, China's private companies showed a sales growth of 17.24 percent, surpassing by far the rate for State-owned enterprises (7.04 percent), said the Forbes Chinese edition Tuesday.

As for net profit, privates saw an increase of 12.53 percent, but State-owned companies only 2.85 percent.

According to Forbes, in the past three years, private listed firms have shown greater ambition and faster growing speed than their respective State-owned.

But for most of them (private companies), they are still run by the first generation of presidents, and it is still unclear whether they will carry on the good performance in the hands of the next generations.

The publication is the first the magazine issued on the circumstances of Chinese listed private companies.