Ten central government bodies, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), have jointly released the 15th Five-Year Plan for Promoting the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The plan highlights financial support as a key measure, calling for a mix of monetary and credit policies to encourage financial institutions to boost lending to SMEs. It also aims to intensify the cultivation of SME listings by building a database for quality enterprises and facilitating regular equity financing connections. Additionally, the plan promotes the growth of venture capital by setting up a second phase of the National SME Development Fund, attracting private capital toward early-stage, small-scale, long-term, and hard-tech investments.
The plan outlines a diversified financing system that links credit, equity, bonds, insurance, and guarantees, organizing financing initiatives for SMEs along key industrial chains. To address risk coverage needs in areas like R&D, commercialization, and industrial scaling, it stresses the importance of developing tailored insurance products. A notable provision is the explicit support for futures companies to offer convenient and efficient risk management services to SMEs, marking a stronger policy push toward financial inclusion for smaller firms.
Looking ahead to 2030, the plan sets ambitious goals, including a cumulative 15% rise in per-capita revenue for SMEs above a designated scale and an 8% annual growth in internal R&D spending for industrial SMEs of that size. It also targets the creation of typical digital-intelligent transformation scenarios, with over 95% of specialized and innovative SMEs reaching level two in digital maturity and over 80% hitting level three, alongside notable gains in energy efficiency. The plan also aims to establish 50 Sino-foreign SME cooperation zones, build a long-term mechanism to prevent delayed payments to SMEs, and broaden their access to diverse financing channels.
To achieve these targets, the plan lays out seven major tasks, covering business stability, employment support, enterprise cultivation, digital and green development, collaborative integration, production factor supply, service system improvement, and legal and policy safeguards. It also introduces seven special projects to ensure effective implementation. A strong emphasis is placed on intelligent, green, and integrated growth, with measures such as applying artificial intelligence to entrepreneurship, transformation, management, and services, expanding green procurement by government, encouraging financial support for green initiatives, and fostering collaborative supply chains led by larger firms.
The plan also stresses a targeted approach, tailoring policies to the diverse needs of SMEs. For traditional industries, it advocates green and low-carbon upgrades with added digital transformation support. Emerging and future-oriented enterprises are encouraged to explore new application scenarios and viable business models. The plan promotes "small, fast, light, and precise" digital products for SMEs, while encouraging digitally advanced firms to adopt AI, participate in intelligent manufacturing initiatives, and contribute to standard-setting. For companies going global, it offers support in market linkage, promotion, and technical exchange to strengthen their international footprint.
Data from the China Center for SME Development shows that as of the end of 2025, over 60 million SMEs were registered nationwide, with more than 128 million employees in SMEs above a designated scale. The average annual growth rates for value-added, revenue, and total profit in industrial SMEs of that scale were 6.4%, 7.4%, and 5.4% respectively, outpacing larger enterprises. This highlights the growing importance of SMEs in China's economic landscape, and the new plan seeks to build on this momentum with a robust financial framework.
The plan's mention of supporting futures companies in delivering risk management services marks a renewed national commitment to futures market inclusion, building on a 2021 State Council notice on helping SMEs navigate difficulties. Futures institutions have already developed mature business models like "insurance plus futures," basis trading, warehouse receipt services, and over-the-counter options. These tools have proven effective in helping SMEs manage price risks across procurement, sales, storage, and logistics, while also easing financing constraints and cutting costs, earning significant success in practice.
Despite these advances, many SMEs still hesitate to use futures tools due to a lack of understanding or confidence. Industry insiders believe the plan will smooth the institutional channels for futures market access, broadening the scope for risk management innovation and practical application. Wang Hongying, president of the China (Hong Kong) Institute for Financial Derivatives Research, suggests that SMEs, as the "capillaries" of the real economy, are poised to enter the market more broadly, deepening the futures market's real-economy engagement. This shift, she notes, underscores a commitment to inclusive finance, expanding the range of participants and industrial clients while opening up vast opportunities for futures firms to evolve into comprehensive risk management service providers.
To seize these opportunities, Wang advises futures companies to act as integrated financial service providers, combining bank credit with hedging needs, particularly through innovative offerings like option-embedded trades and "insurance plus futures" via risk management subsidiaries. This approach can deliver comprehensive risk services while minimizing capital strain for SMEs. Furthermore, she encourages futures firms to step into an advisory role, engaging directly with enterprises through systematic training and end-to-end support, helping SMEs operate steadily within a controlled risk environment and fostering the long-term, sustainable growth of the real economy.