广东支持中小企业发展

Small and medium-sized enterprises are picking up fast, which is especially so in southern Guangdong Province, in part due to favourable policies carried out by the local government.

Mr. Zhu Lin set up his shoe company in 2007 with only 8 people, and after 8 years' development, the company now has over 1,500 employees, owning 600 shoe stores all around China. As Mr. Zhu said, he couldn’t have made such progress without government’s support.

"I’ve been running my business here for a decade. The local bureaus of industry and commerce, taxation as well as public security are all willing to help small companies like us. For example, when we firstly bought the Enterprise Resource Planning software several years ago, the government allocated 100 thousand yuan to support us, and taught our employees how to use it," Zhu said.

The company assembled an apartment for online sales research, and deliver a weekly report to Mr. Zhu on statistics like page views and consumer preference analysis. During the first half of this year the company’s online sales made 100% year-on-year growth rate.

"Sometimes there are fluctuations in business, and the local goverment will contact us to find out if we are facing any difficulties and they would provide guidance and consultation, we really appreciate that," Zhu said.

In late June, China released the Chinese small and medium enterprises prosperity index for 2015. The report indicated that the overall situation has been improving a lot this year, with Guangdong Province ranking on top of the list.

The report also analysed reasons for the index’s rising, showing that favorable policies like tax cut as well as the “Internet plus” plan are powering small and medium enterprises to seek transformation and integration. It also warns that development imbalances and the lack of top talent are obstacles to overcome to achieve further growth.