Private businesses will play a major part in China's investment growth in the coming years, and great opportunities lie in the fast-growing western provinces, a senior official said on Thursday.

"The western provinces have their advantage of late-development, and will see higher rate of investment growth than the east," said Huang Mengfu, chairman of All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.

Speaking at the conference co-hosted by the Business Association and Southwest China's Guizhou province, which came last in the country's GDP rank, Huang spoke in the hope of boosting the province's economic growth by introducing more private investment.

According to Huang, private sectors now contribute to more than 55 percent of China's total GDP growth, and 50 percent of the investment growth.

But the proportion is much lower in less developed provinces, such as Guizhou, of which the private sector only accounts for around 30 percent of its economic aggregate.

To emphasize the role of private investors, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang has recently called for more involvement of private capital in areas such as railways, infrastructure and social causes.

"Compared to government-led investments], private capitals are more profit-oriented, that means they only go to areas where there is a higher return rate," Huang said, adding that Western China has its obvious advantages in this regard.

The continuing Western Development program is improving the investment environment in these provinces, and there is also lower cost and more supportive policies. Meanwhile the demand for higher return of investment could be met with faster growth in these areas, Huang said.

"We are hoping to double the size of our private sector in the next three years," said Zhao Kezhi, governor of Guizhou province.

"All areas are open to private capital as long as there are no violations of the law," Zhao said.

In the conference, the province signed 500 projects with private business owners from all over the country, with a volume of 583 billion yuan ($92 billion). Key areas include recourses, medicine, and tourism.

Among the investors was Chen Guangbiao, a businessman from Jiangsu province and China's most well-known philanthropist. Chen plans to build the largest resource recycling center in the province.

"Fifty percent of the profit from this project will be returned to the local community," Chen said.