Small and medium-sized enterprises will usher in a golden period of development with both quantity and quality improving.

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology and ten other departments, jointly issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for Promoting the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises", which clarified seven key tasks and simultaneously set up seven major special projects (actions) around stabilizing enterprises and employment, strengthening enterprise cultivation, accelerating digital, intelligent and green development, promoting coordinated and integrated development, strengthening the supply of production factors, improving service systems, and strengthening legal and policy guarantees.

According to the plan, it is expected that by 2030, the overall development of my country's small and medium-sized enterprises will increase both in quantity and quality. The per capita operating income of small and medium-sized enterprises above designated size will increase by about 15%; there will be 22,000 specialized, special and new "little giant" enterprises, and the number of national-level small and medium-sized enterprise characteristic industry clusters will reach 600.

This top-level design document to guide the development of small and medium-sized enterprises during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period provides a clear "navigation map" for growth for tens of millions of market entities: in the next five years, my country's small and medium-sized enterprises will achieve an overall improvement in both quantity and quality of development. The operating income and total assets of small and medium-sized enterprises will maintain steady growth; labor remuneration and labor productivity will steadily increase; and innovation and development capabilities will be significantly enhanced.

A “new force” to develop new productive forces

Small and medium-sized enterprises connect thousands of households and are an important force in promoting innovation, promoting employment, and improving people's livelihood. Their vitality directly determines the health of the economic body.

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the comprehensive strength of the development of my country's small and medium-sized enterprises has significantly improved. The operating income and total assets of small and medium-sized enterprises above designated size have increased by an average of 5.7% and 6.6% annually. Innovation capabilities have rapidly improved, and the "golden sign" of specialization, specialization, specialization and innovation has continued to be polished. The average R&D investment intensity of "little giant" enterprises of specialization, specialization, specialization and innovation has reached 7%, and the average R&D investment exceeds 30 million yuan.

What is even more gratifying is that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, my country exceeded the goal of cultivating 100,000 specialized and new small and medium-sized enterprises, and incubated a number of cutting-edge technology innovation enterprises that are deeply involved in artificial intelligence, humanoid robots, semiconductor chips and other fields. It is not difficult to see that taking a new development path of specialization and specialization has become an important path for small and medium-sized enterprises to break through development bottlenecks.

Facing the "15th Five-Year Plan", this plan shows a more long-term strategic consideration: to move towards innovation and excellence, and to improve both quantity and quality. Behind the series of quantitative goals is the country's reaffirmation of the main role of small and medium-sized enterprises in innovation. They no longer regard small and medium-sized enterprises as just a "reservoir" for employment, but position them as a "new force" in the development of new productive forces.

The transformation and upgrading of China's economy cannot rely solely on the individual advancement of a few industry giants, but also requires the collective advancement of a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises. The plan encourages small and medium-sized enterprises to explore business models around emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, and robots, as well as future industries such as quantum technology, brain-computer interfaces, and embodied intelligence. This is precisely to stimulate the innovative vitality of small and medium-sized enterprises and micro entities, and to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to form an "ant army" in key links of the industrial chain.

Solve the "growing pains" of small and medium-sized enterprises

The development dilemma of small and medium-sized enterprises is often not a single funding or market issue, but a problem intertwined with multiple factors such as talent, technology, financing, and rights protection. The highlight of this plan is that it provides a more targeted and comprehensive solution.

At the financing level, the plan proposes to guide banking financial institutions to increase credit support and develop models such as intellectual property pledge financing and accounts receivable financing. This move aims to open up the "last mile" of financial flows to the real economy and alleviate the stubborn problem of information asymmetry between banks and enterprises.

At the talent level, the plan encourages scientific researchers from universities and research institutes to establish technology-based enterprises, supports small and medium-sized enterprises in cooperating with vocational colleges to cultivate talents, and attempts to solve the structural contradiction of "difficulty in recruiting and retaining talents" in small and medium-sized enterprises.

What is particularly noteworthy is that the plan will elevate “preventing and resolving arrears of accounts to small and medium-sized enterprises” to the level of a long-term mechanism. Delinquent accounts are a huge burden on small and medium-sized enterprises, seriously eroding their cash flow and viability. Since June 1 last year, the "Regulations on Guaranteeing Payments to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises" have been officially implemented. This plan proposes to intensify efforts to clean up the arrears of accounts owed to small and medium-sized enterprises by agencies, enterprises, institutions and large enterprises, and strengthen source management.

The plan also proposes to promote the transformation of "enterprises looking for policies" to "policies looking for enterprises" by building a "one network" for national small and medium-sized enterprise services and establishing multi-dimensional policy labels to accurately match the needs of enterprises. The change in service concept means the in-depth transformation of government functions from managers to service providers, aiming to reduce the institutional transaction costs of enterprises and allow good policies to truly transform into a sense of gain for enterprises.

Actively integrate into the industrial chain and supply chain

In the context of the undercurrent of anti-globalization and the restructuring of industrial and supply chains, the way for small and medium-sized enterprises to survive lies in taking the road of specialization and innovation, and more importantly, taking the road of industrial collaboration. The plan proposes “promoting the integrated development of large, small and medium-sized enterprises”, which points out the development direction for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The plan supports large enterprises in opening innovative resources, application scenarios and supply chain systems to small and medium-sized enterprises, and encourages small and medium-sized enterprises to provide supporting services around key links in the industrial chain of large enterprises. The "big hand holding small hand" model can help small and medium-sized enterprises quickly access high-end industrial chains, improve professional supporting capabilities, and thus find their own ecological niche in the fierce market competition.

The plan proposes to cultivate characteristic industrial clusters of small and medium-sized enterprises, and by 2030 there will be 600 national-level characteristic industrial clusters of small and medium-sized enterprises. The cultivation of industrial clusters can produce strong agglomeration effects and synergistic effects, reduce enterprises' logistics, information, and transaction costs, and form regional competitive advantages.

At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation are accelerating breakthroughs, the game between major powers is becoming more complex and intense, and strategic opportunities and risks and challenges for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises coexist. It is necessary to further increase policy support, strengthen reform and innovation measures, fully tap development potential, enhance the endogenous power of enterprises, and consolidate and strengthen the foundation of the real economy.

Facing the "15th Five-Year Plan", small and medium-sized enterprises have broad development prospects and great potential, and it is time for the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises to show their talents. Through policy support, institutional protection, and ecological empowerment, small and medium-sized enterprises will surely usher in a golden period of development in which both quantity and quality will improve.