Innovation Fund Allows Small And Medium Enterprises To Enter The Stage Of Entrepreneurship

Tomorrow, the opening of China's SME sector will undoubtedly cheer many small and medium-sized enterprises.

Ma Songde, Vice Minister of the Ministry of science and technology, said in the Sino US Small and medium enterprise and venture capital forum held in recent days that, in the past 5 years, the innovation fund has accepted 20449 items, 4946 projects, 3 billion 300 million yuan in total, 667 thousand yuan, and its economic and social benefits have begun to appear.

We should not forget that these big enterprises also grew from yesterday's small businesses.

In May 1999, with the help of developed countries, the State Council approved the establishment of the Innovation Fund for technology-based SMEs, which was jointly organized by the Ministry of science and technology and the Ministry of finance.

According to preliminary statistics, in the 1690 projects that have been completed, 910 million yuan has been subsidized by the innovation fund. After the subsidy, the sales revenue of the enterprise has reached 26 billion 920 million yuan, an increase of 14 times, and the tax paid has increased 18.5 times.

It is learnt that with the support of the innovation fund, a number of high quality technology SMEs and a number of outstanding innovative entrepreneurs have come to the fore.

Incubating enterprises and cultivating innovative entrepreneurs are an important function of the innovation fund.

Of the nearly 5000 funded projects, 33%% is a start-up company with a minimum of 18 months. 31%% enterprises are founded by scientific and technical personnel with master's degree or above, and the founders of 376 enterprises are returned overseas students.

Mr Ma said that the establishment of the innovation fund has enhanced the innovative enthusiasm of the small and medium technology enterprises. It has also led local governments, financial institutions and all sectors of society to pay attention to and support for SMEs' innovation activities and ease the shortage of funds for SMEs.

Under the guidance of the national innovation fund, 34 local cities and state-level high-tech industrial development zones have set up a local level innovation fund or a special matching fund of 2 billion 800 million yuan.

Some financial institutions and venture capital institutions have followed the innovation fund support enterprises, and are willing to provide follow-up financial support for further development of enterprises.

In the past 5 years, the innovation fund has supported a number of high-tech enterprises with independent intellectual property rights, forming the characteristics of "small and new" support objects.

Of the nearly 5000 funded projects, 1950 have patents, 675 of which are invention patents.

The innovation fund has also played an important role in the cultivation of high and new technology industries. It has mainly supported enterprises in the fields of electronic information industry, optical and electromechanical integration, biology and medicine, new materials, resources and environment, new energy and high efficiency and energy conservation.

The innovation fund has successfully guided the government departments in charge, intermediaries, technical, financial and economic experts to form an efficient, pparent and fair fund management mode.

The successful operation of the innovation fund of small and medium-sized technology SMEs in China proves that the government is able to support technological innovation in technology-based SMEs.

But Ma Songde also said that the innovation fund has just passed the test stage in China, and there is a big gap between the developed countries and the scale of support, the way of support and the operation mechanism.

Specifically, the innovation fund has not been very smooth in guiding and mobilizing financial capital to invest in technology oriented SMEs, and it is not enough to combine with venture capital institutions and technology financial intermediaries.

According to the survey, according to the survey, the bank has only guided 5 billion 900 million yuan in bank loans in the past 5 years.

Due to the lack of a linkage mechanism with venture capital institutions, the venture capital institutions continued to invest only 10%% in the projects supported by the innovation fund in 2003. In the venture capital investment projects, the support given by the innovation fund accounted for only 4%% of the total number of support projects.

In addition, the sci-tech intermediaries currently involved in the innovation fund are mainly local science and technology departments and their intermediaries, such as the Productivity Promotion Center, while the financial intermediaries such as Guarantee Corporation, trust companies and venture capital centers are not enough.