Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises In Zhejiang Are Worried About Their Business And Living Conditions.

"The operation and survival of small and medium-sized enterprises is worrying" - the relevant departments of Zhejiang province have made undisguised description in the materials submitted to the relevant departments of the state.

Recently, leaders of the central government and the central ministries and commissions have been conducting frequent visits to the coastal areas including Zhejiang.

There are various signs that the plight of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially export enterprises, has attracted the attention of the government.

So, which enterprises should the government give priority to?

And what path to support enterprises?

What is the feasibility and effectiveness of various policies?

This deserves our attention and consideration.

How can the government save enterprises? "The government will work together with enterprises to tide over difficulties."

On July 3, 2008, Lv Zushan, governor of Zhejiang Province, presented the above statement at the sixth member representative meeting of Zhejiang Federation of industrial economy, Zhejiang Federation of enterprises and Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Association yesterday.

At this meeting, Lv Zushan reported in the economic situation that from the perspective of the current economic situation in Zhejiang, it is generally stable; from the next development trend, the trend is grim.

At the meeting, Lv Zushan promised hundreds of enterprises, "the government will further optimize its services, strive to create a good development environment", "the government will work together with enterprises to tide over difficulties together", and encourage entrepreneurs to "strive to uplift the spirit, meet difficulties" and "correctly grasp the situation, start business innovation, change pressure into power, and turn challenges into opportunities".

Xu Guanju, chairman of the Zhejiang Provincial Federation of industry and Commerce and chairman of the group, said recently that the provincial leaders have also raised the view that Zhejiang has achieved rapid economic development on the basis of "rule by doing nothing". Under the current circumstances, the government should choose "do something for and rule" to help enterprises tide over difficulties.

There are indications that the central and local government departments have launched a series of support actions for SMEs. "Government enterprise linkage" is becoming a hot topic in the two circles of politics and economy.

How much policy is there to be expected? There is a media report that the Ministry of Commerce has formally recommended to the State Council to slow down the pace of RMB appreciation and raise export rebates for clothing, toys and footwear so as to prevent a sharp fall in exports and to prevent the collapse of export enterprises.

China's foreign trade surplus was down 20% in June compared with the same period last year. It shows that the weakening of the global economy and weak demand are causing serious impact on China's export industry, and it will also make the Ministry of commerce more reasonable to advocate a slowdown in the rate of RMB appreciation to protect exporters.

All of this is aimed at creating a stable living environment for small and medium enterprises in China.

The relevant departments of the Zhejiang provincial government have also introduced support measures. At the meeting held in July 3rd, Lv Zushan revealed the four major supporting policies of the Zhejiang provincial government in the next stage.

First of all, we should improve the financial environment under tight monetary policy and strive for the credit scale of Zhejiang province no less than last year.

Lv Zushan said that Zhejiang enterprises in Zhejiang province loans, and then to invest outside the province, accounting for a large proportion.

To this end, Lv Zushan in Beijing and four major state-owned banks and the Banking Regulatory Commission and other departments to communicate for three days, and achieved results.

"Encouraging enterprises to stabilize and promote adjustment" is the second aid policy put forward by the Zhejiang provincial government. Lv Zushan disclosed at the meeting that in the next two years, the provincial finance will produce 700 million yuan, and subsidize enterprises with good prospects and heavy pressure on foreign trade export.

The third aid measures strive to make financial innovations.

"Supporting more financial innovations" will become the attitude of relevant departments in Zhejiang Province, such as setting up an industrial development fund, guiding the issuance of small enterprises' collective debt, and developing small loan companies.

"Fourth, it is to further encourage enterprises to innovate independently.

For example, venture capital fund has been created.

Lv Zushan said at the meeting that last year, the provincial government invested more than 6 billion yuan in the enterprise's independent innovation, and this year there will be a big increase on this basis.

The "four measures" have become the guiding opinions of the Zhejiang provincial government's "support" policy.

Then in July 7th, the general office of the Zhejiang provincial government issued the "opinions on promoting the stable and healthy development of foreign trade in the whole province", and put forward 14 opinions on financial support, encouraging enterprises to explore the international market and the progress of export tax rebate.

The 14 opinions in a low profile are full of gold.

These policies include: from January 1, 2008 onwards, provincial finance will arrange a certain amount of funds to support the development of foreign trade, adjust the structure of foreign trade and economic cooperation, ensure the steady growth of foreign trade export in the whole province, carry out the pilot scheme of declaring export tax rebates in the whole province, exempt from providing the paper collection and verification verification list, speed up the examination and approval process of tax rebate documents, simplify relevant procedures and speed up the progress of auditing; all kinds of commercial banks should increase their support for foreign trade enterprises, increase the strength of foreign exchange loans, and continue to carry out financial products business, such as export rebate account hosting loans, and so on.

"From an enterprise perspective, financial subsidies may be the most practical."

According to the interpretation of "four measures" and "14 opinions" by Zhang Handong, director of the Zhejiang international economic and Trade Research Center, this shows that the government can consider more for the enterprises.

A Yiwu boss, who did not want to be named, said to Zhejiang merchants that this is the "most solid one" in the series of supporting policies.

Zhejiang provincial economic and Trade Commission deputy director Ling Yun also revealed that the provincial economic and Trade Commission will also pay close attention to the implementation of the existing industrial support policies in the second half of this year. At the same time, focusing on helping small and medium enterprises and difficult industries to tide over the difficulties, it has put forward 8 countermeasures and 26 countermeasures, including taxation, finance, land, foreign trade and coal and oil pportation. These suggestions have been submitted to the provincial government for reference.

From now on, some policies have been gradually landing. According to the information already clear, the first batch of small loan companies will appear in counties and cities in September (see below).

The pilot of "enterprise collective debt" and "local property rights trading center" has also entered the vision of relevant departments.

What is the priority of supporting enterprises to support them? But how to support them?

What kind of enterprises are they supporting?

At what stage?

It will become a realistic choice for governments at all levels.

At the Zhejiang forum held in early July, Chen Deming, Minister of Commerce, made clear that the policy guidance for some non polluting and low polluting labour intensive industries will be encouraged and supported in the future.

Xu Guanju, vice chairman of the Zhejiang provincial CPPCC and chairman of Zhejiang Provincial Federation of industry and commerce, pointed out that in order to effectively help each enterprise ecosystem, the key is to grasp the leading enterprises in the industry.

"Leading enterprises are located at the core of the system, and their survival and development directly affect the surrounding small and medium-sized enterprises."

Xu Guanju found that the current difficulties are not only the problems of small and medium-sized enterprises, but also the problems faced by leading enterprises in the industry, such as tight capital chain and declining sales.

"Lump economy" is a prominent feature of Zhejiang's economic development. Every plate has several leading enterprises as its core, and many supporting enterprises are distributed around it, forming a three-dimensional ecosystem.

If we combine limited resources and strength to improve the living environment of large enterprises, we should get twice the result with half the effort.

It is also the opinion of many scholars and experts that "supporting, supporting and supporting".

In this special seminar held by this magazine, Hu Xiaoping, vice president of Zhejiang Zhongda Group, is an expert on business strategy.

"The traditional manufacturing enterprises with certain technological content and high added value"; the major chemical and mechanical manufacturing industries represented by shipbuilding industry and equipment manufacturing industry, and the modern service industry in the form of e-commerce, should be the focus of the government's efforts to support.

Hu Xiaoping believes that industries with simple processing must be subject to "shuffle".

Wang Shuguang, deputy director of the CCE center of Zhejiang University, agrees with Hu Xiaoping. He said that Zhejiang's economy is at a critical point, just like ten years ago in Taiwan and twenty years ago in Japan.

"Near learning Taiwan, far learning Japan."

Wang Shuguang proposed that technological pformation of Zhejiang's traditional industries must be realized and technological pformation should be strengthened on the basis of exports.

"Through joint means, the pformation of a group of directors into directors may be the way out for many small and medium-sized enterprises in Zhejiang.

Among them, the government can offer preferential policies to enterprises willing to take the initiative to unite.

Yang Yiqing, deputy director of Zhejiang Business Research Center of Zhejiang Gongshang University, takes the Cixi household appliance industry as an example to explain the view that economic entities must be reduced.

"Now there are more than 10000 home appliance enterprises in Cixi, most of them are small businesses. If they are reduced to 5000, the situation of disorderly competition may be completely changed."

The formulation of Wang Jincai, deputy secretary of the Hangzhou Municipal Committee, coincides with that of experts.

He said that we should now study the issue of euthanasia in small enterprises, and let small, thin profit and low competitiveness paper making, pen making and light textile enterprises in this difficult time to survive, be able to "euthanasia" - the merger of large enterprises, and then the government's efforts to help and strengthen these big enterprises to improve their R & D capability.

In this way, the total economic volume will not be smaller, and at the same time, it will enhance its overall competitiveness.

But how can the government decide which enterprises have the potential to support?

In Ningbo, the municipal government has launched a new evaluation plan for local enterprises, which will be graded according to the profits and taxes, growth, energy consumption, pollution and other aspects of the enterprise.

Hong Jiaxiang, Secretary of Cixi Municipal Committee, proposed to further study and improve supporting policies.

Hong Jiaxiang said that the government should study the issue of "what water to put", "how to put it" and "what kind of fish to raise", so as to help enterprises to walk out and go up in a major adjustment period.

Cixi has made great efforts to reward the enterprises in terms of "high-yield fields" and technological pformation input, and reduced local charges. Some of them have been returned to the financial sector. For export enterprises, enterprises that export more than 1 million US dollars in self export products shall be reduced by 25% of the water conservancy construction fund.

The feasibility of various policies determines the direction of support, through what means to support, what measures will be adopted to support the effect will be better?

Policy support is an urgent need for enterprises, but the feasibility of the announced support measures is still worth the government's careful assessment.

Huang Fajing, chairman of Wenzhou sun Feng lighter Co., Ltd. suggests that the government should first adjust taxes appropriately to lighten the burden on enterprises, followed by macroeconomic regulation and control policies "flexible and less controlled".

"For example, the implementation of the labor contract law, it is possible to focus on the protection of workers' rights and interests tilt to make necessary amendments, in order to take into account the common interests of employers and employees."

He added.

Huang's statement represents many viewpoints of Zhejiang businessmen.

Regarding tax cuts, the deputy director of the Financial Research Institute of the State Council Development Research Center, Ba Shu song, recently said that a more flexible tax policy should be implemented, and the tax revenue of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially those affected by deflation, should be reduced appropriately. At the same time, tax preferences should be invested in those enterprises that produce for domestic demand and actively promote technological progress, so as to promote the process of economic pformation.

Some experts also suggested that if the central government introduced a tax reduction policy, it would be difficult for local governments to subsidize enterprises through tax rebates.

For export oriented enterprises in Zhejiang, the tax rebate rate and exchange rate stability are the most important concerns. These are undoubtedly great benefits.

However, during the interview, Zhejiang businessmen found that many enterprises responded slightly to the tax rebate policy callbacks (see the analysis below).

More manufacturing companies feel that the most profound impact is not the export tax rebate, but the continuous appreciation of the renminbi.

The adjustment of credit policies is likely to be different.

"Easing credit is not easy to reach a consensus.

More importantly, for such scarce resources as credit, SMEs can not fully obtain. "

A scholar who did not want to be named said the government was unable to ascertain that the benefits of credit easing could really be acquired by SMEs.

If credit can not be relaxed, financial subsidies will be eagerly awaited by enterprises.

However, some information indicates that the central departments may find it difficult to get rid of the high financial subsidies and labor costs.

When all countries need the international market to ease domestic conflicts, the use of financial subsidies is undoubtedly a "countervailing" policy for other countries.

In view of the labor cost problem, labor cost is very difficult to loose due to the formal implementation of the labor contract law. In fact, it is also a necessary correction for the low labor cost in the past.

In view of this, there is a view that these policies are more than just "palliative" for alleviating the plight of enterprises. The fundamental solution is not that. Only industrial upgrading can get rid of the predicament of low profits, and stimulating domestic demand can not be disturbed by the fluctuation of world economy.

Therefore, the foothold and foothold of all the government's supporting policies should be promoted.