Alibaba's Jack Ma, Lenovo's Yang Yuanqing, and JD.com's Liu Qiangdong were among the business leaders of China's private sector who attended the annual entrepreneur forum in Yabuli.

Friday's forum included discussions on a variety of topics and the release of a confidence index of Chinese entrepreneurs that shows their confidence level has dropped to 50.27. That's its lowest mark in three years. The business leaders also talked about the new economic drivers that Ma said are emerging in China.