The Poster News APP:

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a key focus of the overall digital transformation drive. While SMEs in China are expediting their digital transformation efforts, they still face certain challenges. How can we address these challenges? Thank you.

Liu Liehong:

Thank you for your interest in SMEs' digital transformation. I'll take this question. We believe that smart and digital transformation reflects the overwhelming trend of development, and it is a necessity for SMEs. In recent years, the digital transformation of SMEs in China has shifted from theoretical plans to large-scale practice, evolving from a policy-driven approach to a value-driven strategy. While many businesses have made significant progress, challenges remain. Companies that excel in this area are often those with strong core competitiveness, marketable products and high-cost performances. These companies also emphasize the enabling role of digital measures, focus on key areas such as design, production, sales and services, and achieve high effectiveness in business operation, management and related services. Therefore, we believe that SMEs' digital transformation should focus on two aspects. First, SMEs need to enhance their capacities for innovation. For SMEs, strengthening sci-tech innovation means using digital technologies to improve their efficiency in research and development, production as well as sales and services, thereby building core competitiveness. In the meantime, SMEs need to make their products smarter and more digital, further improving their sustainable development capacity in aspects concerning smart delivery measures and brand building. Second, SMEs need to strengthen the use of data throughout the industrial chain. As SMEs often face insufficient data supply, we need to further leverage data's role to connect and drive innovation. We need to enhance data integration throughout the industrial chain. We also need to create a data circulation and utilization system where leading enterprises play a dominant role and upstream and downstream enterprises help in transforming this system in a coordinated manner, in a bid to provide targeted solutions tailored to specific enterprises. .

Moving forward, the NDA will collaborate with relevant state organs to continue creating a conducive environment for SMEs' digital transformation. To strengthen policy support, we will enhance inter-departmental coordination and build synergy. We will launch and implement related digital transformation projects, promote digital transformation in key sectors and improve public service platforms for various regions, industrial parks and industrial clusters. We will provide more solution and services, supporting leading enterprise and third-party digital service providers to build comprehensive platforms that facilitate digital transformation, in a bid to promote coordination across industrial chains. To further leverage the enabling role of data, we are studying and formulating policies concerning the development and utilization of business data resources. We will improve the efficient supply of public data resources. In accordance with market principles, we will also promote the joint development and utilization of business data among enterprise of all sizes, so as to continuously meet the data resource needs of SMEs and other enterprises. We will further implement the three-year action plan to promote the use of data as a factor of production and enhance SMEs' capacity in data utilization, aiming to reduce costs while increasing efficiency. To create an environment for digital transformation, we support relevant parties in developing digital products, services and solutions that are small-scale, easy to use, portable and precisely suited to the need of SMEs. In this way, we aim to create an ecosystem for digital transformation that integrates supply and demand, highlights collaboration throughout the industrial chain and features value-driven approaches. We also encourage and support internet platforms and leading enterprises to leverage their strengths by opening their digital resources and transformation measures to SMEs, thus helping SMEs to achieve digital transformation. Thank you.

Xing Huina:

This concludes today's press conference. Thank you to Mr. Liu Liehong, the other three spokespersons and our friends from the media. Goodbye, everyone. 

Translated and edited by Xu Xiaoxuan, Wang Ziteng, Yang Xi, Liu Caiyi, Yan Bin, Lin Liyao, Qin Qi, Xiang Bin, Liao Jiaxin, Zhu Bochen, Wang Qian, Ma Yujia, Wang Wei, Wang Yanfang, Yuan Fang, Liu Sitong, Liu Qiang, Li Huiru, David Ball, Rochelle Beiersdorfer, and Jay Birbeck. In case of any discrepancy between the English and Chinese texts, the Chinese version is deemed to prevail.