The Chinese central government has issued a new policy directive to step up official support for Chinese small businesses in 2023.
The State Council’s leadership team for driving small businesses development recently issued the “Several Measures for Helping Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to Steadily Grow, Adjust Their Structure and Strengthen Their Capabilities” (助力中小微企业稳增长调结构强能力若干措施).
The directive contain a total of 15 specific measures for the purpose of “further stabilising growth and stabilising expectations, and driving micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to make structural adjustments and increase their capabilities.”
These measures include:
- Expanding the intensity of financial support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Effectively expanding market demand.
- Expanding the ability to rear up special, new and elite small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Expediting the commercialisation of scientific and technological research and the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Expanding support for direct financing by high-quality small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Measures make specific reference to “making effective use of monetary policy tools including small-business support re-loans, financial inclusion micro-and-small loan support tools and tech innovation re-loans to continually guide financial institutions to increase their lending to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.”
They also seek to “drive financial institutions to increase first loans, credit loans, no-principal repayment extension loans and medium and long-term loans; expand the lending model of borrowing and paying as you go, and driving an increase in the volume and coverage of financial inclusion micro-and-small enterprise loans.
In addition to financial measures, the Measures seek to increase the quota of government procurements reserved for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to at least 40% by the end of 2023.
