Photo taken on Sept. 30, 2018 shows Zhongguancun InnoWay, an entrepreneurship-oriented street in Haidian District of Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong)
BEIJING, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Data showed that China's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been confident about their market prospect with stable expectations, thanks to the effects of various policy support aimed to solve problems they may face during the pandemic.
According to data released by China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Index (SMEDI) went back to 86.3 in November, up 0.2 month on month. The sub-index for the sentiment on the macroeconomy climbed 0.3 points to 99.9 during the same time.
There are more figures indicating growing confidence of SMEs. For example, from January to October, industrial SMEs above designated size have seen their turnover and profit up 21.5 percent and 30.4 percent, respectively, data from the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed.
The MIIT also applied big data to monitor power usage of SMEs, finding that indicators on SME's prosperity stood at 100.4 in October, falling into the expansion range for two consecutive months.
The continued policy support, particularly in business environment, financing and innovation have been the main drivers to the rapid development of SMEs.
-- Better business environment
"Private enterprises are increasingly confident about their future as less limitations exist during their bidding process," said Sun Chaozhong, general manager of a Beijing-based environmental technology firm.
A survey on business environment for SMEs by All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce published in November showed that SMEs' satisfaction of business environment has increased for three straight years, with score of 77.18 in 2021, comparing to 68.71 in 2019.
China rolled out policies to provide a level playing field for SMEs. The central government rolled out a circular two years ago to give market access to SMEs and local governments implemented the order by making the negative list for SMEs as short as possible.
China also set up pilots for innovation in business environment in six cities to make bidding process more transparent and highly-effective.
Fair competition has been a buzz word in recent years as China cracked down on monopoly and unfair competition to unleash innovation potentials of enterprises.
-- Easier financing
China's vast SME sector is under pressure amid uncertainties of global demand and a slowdown in the pace of the domestic economic recovery. The SMEs face rising challenges in operations, given the increasing commodity prices and persisting financing difficulties.
Against this background, China's central government has pledged more support to the sector.
Loans to small and micro-sized firms totaled 18.6 trillion yuan (about 2.92 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of October, up 26.7 percent year on year, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC).
There were 42.17 million small firms receiving inclusive loans, up 34.1 percent from the same period last year.
Photo taken on Nov. 15, 2021 shows a scene at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Stock Exchange, in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Xin)
Moreover, the new stock exchange in Beijing opened as part of an attempt to support the growth of SMEs and the nation's capital markets. The bourse has seen 82 enterprises listed, among which 17 are "little giants", which are small enterprises in the early stage of development in emerging industries.
-- More tax/fee cut
In 2021, China continued to roll out favorable policies such as tax cut and fee reduction to help the virus-stricken small firms.
The State Council has recently rolled out tax deferment policy for manufacturing SMEs in the fourth quarter. From Nov. 1 to Dec. 8, total amount of tax deferment for these enterprises hit 78.33 billion yuan.
Meanwhile, China's tax watchdog also launched dedicated program for SMEs, in order to make these favorable tax policies accessible for more SMEs.
The tax deduction policy for research and development (R&D) expense has been strengthened. Manufacturing enterprises could enjoy more tax deduction in this regard at an earlier time.
With all these policy support in place, China has incubated 4,762 national-level "little giant" enterprises to date, according to the MIIT.
The operating incomes and total profits of "little giant" enterprises respectively increased 31.6 percent and 67.9 percent in the first nine months of this year, Xu Xiaolan, vice minister of the MIIT, told a news briefing.
(Edited by Li Shimeng with Xinhua Silk Road, lishimeng@xinhua.org)
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