Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Notice on Further Increasing Relief and Assistance to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice").

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the main force of national economic and social development, and they play an important role in promoting growth, guaranteeing employment, and improving people's livelihood.

Affected by rising raw material prices, insufficient orders, difficult labor and expensive labor, slow collection of accounts receivable, high logistics costs, the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and power cuts in some areas, small and medium-sized enterprises have high cost pressures and increasing operating difficulties.

In order to implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and further increase the efforts to help enterprises to relieve their difficulties, the "Notice" proposes policy measures from nine aspects.

The "Notice" emphasizes the need to ease the pressure of rising costs, strengthen the monitoring and early warning of bulk commodities, severely crack down on illegal activities such as hoarding and price hikes, promote futures companies to provide risk management services for small and medium enterprises, and stabilize the supply of liner companies on China’s main export routes. It encourages the companies to launch special line services for SMEs.
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Strengthen the guarantee of electricity use, scientifically implement the orderly use of electricity, rationally arrange the use of power at peak shifts, ensure the electricity demand of small and medium-sized enterprises in key links of the industrial chain, and encourage places where conditions permit to implement phased preferential power use for small and micro enterprises.

The "Notice" clearly stated that it is necessary to increase support for relief funds, encourage local governments to arrange relief funds for small and medium-sized enterprises, implement the policy of discounts and incentives for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, and make good use of financing guarantees for small and micro enterprises to reduce fees and subsidize funds.

To further promote tax reduction and fee reduction, manufacturing small, medium and micro enterprises will postpone the payment of some taxes and fees in the fourth quarter of 2021 in accordance with regulations, study the continuation of policies that will be introduced in a timely manner after the expiration of some preferential policies, and continue to clean up and standardize corporate fees.

Use a variety of financial policy tools flexibly and accurately, make good use of the 300 billion yuan of new small re-loan line, increase credit loans, and strengthen working capital loan support for small and micro enterprises that have been severely affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, floods and rising raw material prices.

The "Notice" clarified that the construction of the electricity production, supply, storage and marketing system should be strengthened, orderly use electricity should be implemented scientifically, and peak-shifting should be reasonably arranged to ensure the safe and stable supply of energy to small and medium-sized enterprises, especially small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises.

Promote leading enterprises in the industrial chain to sort out the list of key upstream and downstream enterprises, ensure the electricity demand of small and medium-sized enterprises in key links of the industrial chain, maintain the safety and stability of the industrial chain supply chain, ensure the normal production of existing orders, and prevent the risk of order default.

Accelerate the reform of the electricity market, give full consideration to the reform process and the affordability of SMEs, and promote SMEs to enter the electricity market in a stable and orderly manner.

Encourage places where conditions permit to implement phased preferential treatment of electricity for small and micro enterprises.

The "Notice" stated that it is necessary to support enterprises to stabilize and expand their jobs, to attract more key groups such as college graduates, and to strengthen the connection of information on employment supply and demand. We will ensure payment by small and medium-sized enterprises, continue to carry out special actions to clean up the outstanding accounts of small and medium-sized enterprises, and prevent the formation of "triangular debts" from arrears at the source.

Focus on expanding market demand, increase investment in people's livelihood and new infrastructure construction, further implement the "Administrative Measures for Government Procurement to Promote the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises", promote large enterprises to expand the scale of procurement from small and medium-sized enterprises, develop cross-border matching services for small and medium-sized enterprises, and accelerate overseas Warehouse development.

The "Notice" requires all relevant departments and regions to strengthen their responsibilities, be brave to innovate, help small and medium-sized enterprises cope with difficulties, and promote the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the direction of "specialization, specialization and innovation".

All relevant departments should strengthen research and guidance and support, and firmly promote the implementation of various policies and measures.