CHINESE companies’ production and operations are still facing great difficulties amid the coronavirus pandemic and recovery of the industrial economy needs time, the industry minister said.

Miao Wei made the comments yesterday at a press conference.

China’s factories are attempting to get back to work in challenging conditions amid the virus outbreak that is severely disrupting the global economy.

About 91 percent of China’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) had resumed operation as of Monday after disruptions caused by COVID-19, official data showed.

Some 93 percent of SMEs in the manufacturing and construction sectors had resumed work, while around 87 percent of SMEs in the hotel and catering sectors restarted business, said Huang Libin, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), at the press conference.

China has rolled out a series of targeted measures to support SMEs, which were among the hardest hit by the epidemic.

Policies such as cuts in banks’ reserve requirement ratios as well as special relending and rediscount programs have offered low-cost loans of 2.85 trillion yuan (US$400 billion) to firms, especially micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as well as individual businesses, said Miao.

The country will continue to implement policy incentives and step up financial support for SMEs, while helping them to develop expertise in specific fields, Miao said.

Last week, The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planner, announced that it will take actions to fuel the transformation of SMEs toward digitalization, as part of efforts to tide them over the tough time.

The NDRC will cooperate with other government departments, leading enterprises, financial institutions, research institutes, and industrial associations to provide online services for SMEs to help them be more digitally savvy.

Efforts will be made to accelerate the digital transformation of enterprises and nurture new business models of the digital economy, said Lin Nianxiu, deputy director with the NDRC.

The country also pledged to build virtual industrial parks and clusters, as well as encourage leading enterprises to help their upstream and downstream firms to better embrace digital opportunities.(SD-Xinhua)