Policy support for small and medium enterprises strengthened through 2021, with national measures on relief, practical support for specialised SMEs, and competitiveness. By the end of 2021 China had 154 million registered market entities, including 48.423 million enterprises — over 99% of them SMEs.
SMEs are the economy’s capillaries: they hold up employment and market vitality, they are a link in supply chain stability, and they matter to solving core technology bottlenecks. Digital transformation is now central to their development, and the industrial internet is the bridge — arguably the fundamental route by which smaller firms catch the current technology wave.
What the platforms deliver
Four years into the industrial internet strategy, the ministry counts more than 150 sizeable platforms serving over 1.6 million industrial enterprises, with more than 2,000 5G-plus-industrial-internet projects under way.
SMEs are using these platforms to cut cost — paying per use instead of buying software and hardware, and skipping the time cost of assembly and team-building. To raise efficiency, platforms connect the upstream and downstream of supply chains so related firms share information and manage logistics, cash and data as one. To raise quality, digital modelling of production replaces rough experience-based judgement with precise data analysis, cutting R&D, design, materials and labour costs.
Going digital is itself the greener path: better allocation of resources across a wider range helps carbon goals. Fused with safety management, platforms enable digital management of key equipment across its life and of processes end to end, moving frontline staff out of dangerous spots.
Finance is the other unlock. SMEs struggle to borrow because of information asymmetry and risk uncertainty; standardised, dynamic collection of key industrial data lets lenders see real operations, giving firms without collateral a credit enhancement and gradually building an SME rating system.
Getting smaller firms aboard
Large firms can build their own platforms. Smaller ones, short of capital, talent and technology, do better riding public platforms provided by government or industrial parks — renting cloud ERP or CAD tools and digitalising at low cost.
The numbers behind the push: the numerical-control rate on key processes at large industrial firms is 55.3% and digital R&D tool penetration is 74.7%, and firms that have adopted report real gains in quality, efficiency and competitiveness.
This year the ministry plans to publish industry-by-industry guidance, cultivate qualified solution providers with practical case methods, and support leading firms in building enablement platforms for smaller ones — targeting digital transformation services for no fewer than 100,000 SMEs and cloud migration for 100,000 by year end.
As SME digitalisation moves from pilots into practice, the industrial internet will carry more of the load — and the firms that board early will compound the advantage.
Republished for information. The original text has not been independently verified and does not necessarily reflect our views.
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