A seminar on Guanghua Thought Leadership and the release event for the China Small Business Operator Survey Report were held in Beijing on April 28th. Experts at the event stated that small and micro enterprises currently demonstrate strong operational resilience and are actively coping with market pressures through methods like digital transformation.

"Small business operators represent the most profound foundation and the broadest micro-level base of the Chinese economy," said Tian Xuan, Dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. Regarding support for small and micro enterprises, he suggested two key areas: first, improving the legal environment by advancing legislation for personal bankruptcy systems while strengthening intellectual property protection to incentivize innovation among private small and micro businesses; second, maintaining stable macro-policy direction.

During the report release, scholars and experts analyzed the current state and new development trends of small businesses. Zhang Xiaobo, Director of the Enterprise Big Data Research Center at Peking University and a Chair Professor at the Guanghua School of Management, indicated that digitalization is driving significant structural changes. On one hand, the usage rates of online sales and information systems continue to rise. According to a recent quarterly survey of nearly ten thousand samples, 25.5% of small and micro enterprises have already applied AI technology in their actual operations. On the other hand, digitalization has propelled the female entrepreneurship rate from 17% to 36% within five years. He recommended that future policies should shift more towards inclusive measures that promote livelihoods and expand demand, while providing entrepreneurs with a stable and relaxed development environment.

Xie Zhuan, a Senior Researcher at the Ant Group Research Institute, reported that, thanks to ongoing national governance efforts, the accounts receivable situation for small and micro enterprises showed improvement both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year in the first quarter. In terms of costs, rental costs continued their downward trend, and financing interest rates have also decreased due to the strong push for financial institutions to support small businesses, effectively reducing the operational burden. Simultaneously, labor costs have become more manageable through proactive optimization and adjustments by enterprises. Regarding financing, traditional banks and internet banks have become important financing channels for small and micro enterprises, jointly driving down interest rates and providing tangible support.

Furthermore, multiple experts noted that while small and micro enterprises are currently sharing in the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence development, they also face practical challenges such as the digital divide. Cai Fang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed that artificial intelligence is a core new source for improving total factor productivity, but it is accompanied by a strong "creative destruction" effect, which accelerates the birth and death of enterprises and the destruction and creation of jobs. In this context, he emphasized that policy philosophy should shift to "enterprises may succeed or fail, but individuals should not be labeled winners or losers." It is essential to leverage the "zero marginal cost" and open-source, egalitarian characteristics of AI to bridge the digital intelligence divide faced by small and micro enterprises and workers, enabling them to share the benefits of productivity gains. "Investment in physical capital and investment in human capital should be closely integrated, with more funds directed towards inclusive social protection and human capital, providing necessary safeguards for operators after business failures. At the same time, we must proactively adapt to the reality that new forms of employment are becoming the new normal, innovating social security and labor market institutions to provide solid support for small and micro enterprises and workers," Cai Fang suggested.

Nie Huihua, a professor at the School of Economics at Renmin University of China, believes that while AI can help enterprises save costs and assist in marketing in the short term, it may trap small and micro businesses in a low-level "small but comprehensive" dilemma in the long run. If "one-person companies" abandon the platform for organizational growth and forego the management experience and intergenerational succession gained through learning by doing, it will constrain their innovation potential and long-term development.

Zhang Xiaobo stated that the trend towards smaller organizational sizes driven by AI is already a future inevitability, which will fundamentally alter the forms of employment and the structure of the social security system. Existing legal systems for social security and health insurance are designed based on traditional large-company employment models. Faced with increasingly prevalent new employment patterns like flexible work and one-person companies, these systems are becoming increasingly inadequate. He suggested fundamentally reforming the traditional social security system and implementing more inclusive protection mechanisms, allowing all residents, including small business operators, to enjoy the benefits of technological innovation and development, thereby achieving a virtuous cycle where people dare to consume and spend.