The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has issued new guidelines for the digitisation of small businesses in China that call for greater support from financial institutions.
On 8 November, MIIT issued the “Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Digital Transformation Guidelines” (中小企业数字化转型指南) for the purpose of “helping SMEs to scientifically and efficiently drive digital transformation and upgrade the provision of digital products and services to SMEs.”
The Guidelines “encourage and guide financial institutions to provide special discount loans to enterprises for digitisation,” as well as envisage the application of “differentiated credit extension and assessment mechanisms to SME digitisation projects.”
In order to raise the rigour and reliability of qualification reviews and asset assessments for enterprises and projects, the Guidelines call for “making full use of digital technology including artificial intelligence, big data and the blockchain, to establish risk control models and risk dispersion and compensation mechanisms.”
