The building of pressure vessel industrial cluster is in full swing in Kuancheng county, Hebei province. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By CHEN Chunyou

In early April, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC) held a meeting centered on supporting private sci-tech enterprises in growing to be national leading enterprises and world-class enterprises.

Private enterprises further recognized

Wang Zhigang, minister of science and technology, said private enterprises have become an important component of the national innovation system and promoted sci-tech innovation and the development of the high-tech industry in China. It is a realistic option to cultivate some of the enterprises with leading sci-tech capacity as a national strategic sci-tech force, to realize self-reliance and self-improvement at higher levels.

In recent years, a number of private enterprises have continuously increased R&D investment, taken the lead in undertaking national sci-tech tasks, and played an important role in making breakthroughs in key and core industrial technologies. Their status and role as strategic sci-tech forces have become more prominent, said Wang.

MOST will continue to improve the innovation capacity of private enterprises and increase support in innovation base building, talent development and research investment, said Wang, adding that the policy guidance and service should be strengthened, creating a stable, transparent and controllable development environment for them, and enhancing their confidence for the future.

Expectations for private enterprises

Wang stressed that leading private sci-tech enterprises should be aware that they ought to be active in undertaking the responsibility to benefit the nation. Their development strategy should be in line with the national development strategy, breaking through bottlenecks that restrict national economic and social security.

Wang said entrepreneurs should advocate entrepreneurship, aiming to be excellent entrepreneurs with global vision, professional quality and strategic insight.

MOST, coupled with ACFIC, will encourage development of private enterprises to be involved in the national strategy. The space for them to be innovative would be continuously optimized, while support for them as head of industrial chain would be given, helping them make further progress in becoming national leading enterprises and world-class enterprises.

Incentives available

Xu Lejiang, executive vice chairman of ACFIC, said the role of sci-tech enterprises as innovation agents should be given due attention.

The two sides are expected to prevent and defuse risks that private sci-tech enterprises may encounter, pay close attention to the industries that are heavily affected by policies, and formulate personalized services and plans to support giant enterprises to become the leaders in their respective industries, said Xu.

This April, a tax rebate policy was released to help the sci-tech SMEs, meaning that the proportion of additional deduction for R&D expenses will be increased to 100 or 200 percent.

The tax reduction incentives undoubtedly reduce the enterprises' R&D investment costs and worries amid the COVID-19 period, encourage them to enhance technological innovation capacity, and further stimulate the innovation vitality of market entities.