Specialized SMEs inject vitality into China's high-quality development

A robotic dog is seen at the booth of ZTE Corporation at an auxiliary exhibition during the 2021 Global Industrial Internet Conference in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, Oct. 18, 2021. (Xinhua/Yang Qing)

BEIJING, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Addressing an exhibition area full of visitors, a product manager from a medical technology company is elucidating a machine, emphasizing that it can help people with mobility difficulties walk comfortably without a power source.

In a just-concluded conference on China's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) development in Shenyang, the capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, 150 specialized and sophisticated SMEs that produce novel and unique products from all over the country participated with their latest products and research results.

"This passive wearable exoskeleton device can support the hip joint and knee joint of the human body through the mechanical and physical principle of the pendulum by using the gravity of the human body instead of the motor driving force, thus enabling people with impaired mobility to walk," said Zhang Duo, the product manager with the medical technology company Sysmed (China).

Beijing Tri-tech is a specialized and sophisticated enterprise that produces novel and unique products, focusing on providing integrated solutions for the robotic system in the energy industry.

Its newly-developed wall-climbing inspection and cleaning robot can walk on the surface of large metal cans through magnetic adsorption. It can also collect images and detect them while cleaning by using its high-definition camera, according to Chen Xue, the general manager's assistant.

"The robots effectively solve the previous problems of low efficiency and high risks of manual detection, and they have been applied in many power plants," Chen said.

At present, specialized and sophisticated SMEs that produce novel and unique products are becoming the cradle of new industries, new business forms, and new models, and promoting China's manufacturing industry toward higher-end, more intelligent, and greener development, said Li Zibin, president of the China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises.

Robotic arms assemble engines on an assembly line at a workshop of the Weichai Power Co., Ltd. in Weifang City, east China's Shandong Province, April 22, 2021. (Xinhua/Guo Xulei)

China has cultivated more than 70,000 specialized and sophisticated SMEs that produce novel and unique products, of which nearly 9,000 are "little giant" firms, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Many local Chinese governments actively promote the implementation of relevant policies. Liaoning has issued a work plan to improve the gradient training system for specialized and sophisticated SMEs. East China's Anhui Province has proposed to build more than 5,000 provincial-level specialized and sophisticated enterprises by 2025 and 500 national-level specialized and sophisticated "little giant" firms.

The Beijing Stock Exchange takes these SMEs as their priority and has formed a complete market system to provide whole-chain services for them.

There are now more than 70 listed specialized and sophisticated "little giant" firms on the Beijing Stock Exchange, accounting for 40 percent of the total 186 listed companies.

"These SMEs will effectively prop up China to accelerate the transformation of development mode, optimize the economic structure, and transform the growth momentum," Li Zibin said.