BEIJING, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- China has issued a plan to promote high-quality development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the 2026-2030 period, setting targets for business growth, innovation and the development environment.
By 2030, China's SMEs are expected to achieve growth in both quality and scale, with per capita operating revenue of major SMEs posting cumulative growth of around 15 percent over the five-year period, according to the plan, which was jointly issued by 10 government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
The plan describes SMEs as an important force in driving innovation, creating jobs and improving people's livelihoods. It calls for efforts to improve systems for cultivating high-quality enterprises and providing public services, strengthen the legal and policy framework, and ensure better access to factors of production and a more supportive development environment.
SMEs contribute roughly 70 percent of China's technological innovation, 60 percent of its gross domestic product, and 80 percent of its urban employment, according to an OECD report on SME financing.
SMEs' innovation capacity will be notably enhanced, with average annual growth in internal research and development expenditure by major industrial SMEs targeted at over 8 percent and the number of "little giant" firms expected to reach 22,000 by 2030, according to the plan.
"Little giant" firms refer to the novel elites of SMEs that are engaged in manufacturing, specialize in a niche market and boast cutting-edge technologies.
The plan calls for continued improvements to the SME service system and an increase in the number of cooperation zones for Chinese and foreign SMEs to 50 by 2030.
By then, the development environment for SMEs is expected to improve further, with a sound long-term mechanism for resolving payment arrears owed to SMEs largely in place and access to diversified financing further broadened.
The plan sets out seven key tasks, including keeping businesses and employment stable, strengthening enterprise cultivation, accelerating digital, intelligent and green development, promoting coordinated and integrated development, improving the supply of production factors, strengthening the SME service system, and enhancing legal and policy safeguards.
It further specifies measures that include helping SMEs develop trademark and brand strategies, and launching the second phase of a national SME development fund, among others.
"SMEs face strategic opportunities, as well as risks and challenges, as a new round of sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation gathers pace and competition among major countries grows more complex and intense," said an MIIT official.
The official said that, in response to new circumstances, China needs to step up policy support, strengthen reform and innovation measures, boost SMEs' internal drivers of growth, and reinforce the foundations of the real economy.
The plan is expected to open up more pathways for SME transformation and upgrading, said Ma Yuan, deputy director of the Institute for Enterprise Research under the Development Research Center of the State Council.
Supporting SME development is among the priorities of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), which calls for promoting the growth of SMEs that use specialized and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products, reducing computing costs for SMEs, and strengthening services to support their digital and intelligent transformation.
This year's government work report also pledged stronger support for SMEs undergoing digital and intelligent transformation.
China made notable progress in SME development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), with more than 63 million SMEs operating nationwide by the end of 2025, accounting for over 95 percent of all business entities. ■
