The Chinese central government has unveiled plans to launch a trial scheme for the provision of fiscal support to the digital transformation of small businesses.
On 17 August the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) jointly released a notice to announce the launch of “arrangements to undertake work for trials to give fiscal support to the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises.”
During the period from 2022 to 2025 the central fiscal plan will support three sets of trials, with key objectives to include:
- Raising the ability of digitised public services platforms to provide services to SME’s.
- The creation of a set of digitised, systemic solution plans and products that are scaled down, rapid, streamlined and targeted.
- The formation of a set of typical, digital transformation models that are reproducible, covering 100 sub-industries and supporting around 300 public services platforms.
- The creation of 4000 – 6000 “small lamp” enterprises to serve as models for digital transformation and drive the accelerated digitisation of Chinese SME’s.
MIIT and MOF will also provide subsidies for a term of one year for each set of trials, before allocating further subsidies based on assessments of the digital transformation of Chinese SMEs.
