Digitalization can empower SMEs, create jobs

Providing jobs and helping small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) weather the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic have become key issues for China, and those issues are attracting much attention ahead of the upcoming two sessions that start on Thursday.

Entrepreneurs who are deputies to the two sessions have offered proposals to help SMEs get through the trying times, such as pushing forward their digital transformation and resolving obstacles in financing while absorbing more workers.

Apart from financial support, new technologies like big data and cloud computing can empower SMEs, said Pony Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of tech giant Tencent, who is also a deputy to the National People's

Congress (NPC), the top lawmaking body.

Ma noted SMEs could resist risks more effectively via new models like “virtual human resources” and “job sharing” in the short term, while it is important to promote transformation toward digitalization in the long run.

Zhang Jindong, an NPC deputy and chairman of e-commerce giant Suning Holdings, noted in his proposals to the two sessions that an inter-connected information system of SMEs in a province should be established, to provide a solid database for financial institutions to evaluate loan applications.

SMEs that have created about 80 percent of the urban jobs in China are concerned about how long they may survive without supportive policies, Zhou Dewen, deputy director of the China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

“The most urgent problem these ventures face is to increase revenue while cut costs,” Zhou said. He said that several effective and feasible policies like tax cuts should be implemented to help them weather the public health crisis.

Liu Yonghao, chairman of China's agricultural conglomerate New Hope Group, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body, suggested in his proposal that China issue “employment vouchers” to companies to keep all of their workers on payroll. New Hope Group plans to hire 1,000 people who have postgraduate degrees and 10,000 undergraduates this year.