Officials have recognized the private sector informally with a target to privatize state-owned firms. Privatization pressure increased in 2010 after state-owned Shipbuilding Industry Corp. defaulted on a $600 million loan, and that kind of flap could come up again. The number of purely government-owned firms has declined from 10,000 to fewer than 1,000 but another 3,000 companies with partial state ownership may miss targets for more privatization. “They’ve systematically gone about it but are still holding onto those 3,000 firms,” Mahajan says.