“Specialized, refined, special and new” SMEs focus on a certain link in the industrial chain, focus on the core business, have strong innovation ability, innovative vitality and anti-risk capability, and have the characteristics of specialization, refinement, specialization, and novelty. They have become the key carrier of the implementing innovation-driven development strategy and the solid guarantee for improving the stability and competitiveness of the supply chain of the industrial chain. China has turned to the stage of high-quality development. We must firmly follow the lead of scientific and technological innovation and vigorously develop " specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs, give full play to their potentials in supplementing and strengthening the industry chain, inject a steady stream of new impetus into the construction of a new development pattern, and promote high-quality economic development.

　　"Specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs are playing an increasingly important role in China's economic and social development, and vigorously developing "specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs has become an important part in the implementation of the new development concept. For a long time, Chinese enterprises have focused merely on the scale and growth rate of enterprises. Although they have made important contributions to the rapid growth of China's economy at certain stages, they have also brought about insufficient economic development potential under extensive development, low international competitiveness of products, and inadequate anti-risk capabilities. "Specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs take innovation as their core, focus on market segments, and emphasize the degree of specialization. They can obtain relative advantages in the industry through industrial division of labor and profit stratification, and they have extremely high growth and competitiveness. During the epidemic, “specialized, refined, special and new” SMEs took the lead in resuming work and production, and have achieved steady growth against the recessionary trend in the context of the hindered supply chain, demonstrating strong innovation strength and development resilience. According to statistics, in the first half of this year, the growth of business income and total profits of small and medium-sized enterprises above designated size in China has exceeded the pre-epidemic level, achieving a two-year average growth of 10.5% and 20.4% respectively. The ability of "specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs to grow into global leading companies in market segments will help make up for China's shortcomings in key industry domains and effectively solve the "stranglehold" problem.

　　At present, the development of "specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs is also facing growth problems, which are mainly reflected in the need to improve the ability of continuous innovation, to strengthen the capability of innovation and cooperation, to alleviate the cost of financing, and to improve the business environment. These problems can limit their long-term sustainable development potential. First of all, compared with developed countries, China's investment in basic research is still insufficient, and the ability of “specialized, refined, special and new” SMEs to lay out the frontiers of science and technology needs to be improved, which also limits their competitiveness and sustainable development in the world's high-end and sophisticated fields. Moreover, China has not yet formed a mature collaborative innovation system that integrates production, education, research, and application. The technological innovation collaboration model and benefit distribution mechanism are not yet clear, and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements is not smooth, leading to idle scientific research institutions and insufficient product innovation in the industrial field. In addition, “specialized, refined, special and new” SMEs face many common difficulties in SME financing, and financing channels limit the efficient development of innovative activities. The business environment has also affected the high-quality development of "specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs. The current market monopoly has suppressed the innovation and development of SMEs, and some geographical areas still have problems such as lazy governance.

　　To vigorously develop “specialized, refined, special and new” SMEs, it is necessary to optimize systems and mechanisms and to strengthen policy support. First of all, we must get rid of the inherent system that restricts the innovation of " specialized, refined, special and new" SMEs, strengthen the top-level design of the scientific and technological innovation system, and form a competitive mechanism that helps to enhance innovation vitality. The "two-wheel drive" role of the company has formed an interactive situation in which institutional innovation promotes scientific and technological innovation, and scientific and technological innovation in turn drives institutional innovation. At the same time, it will consolidate the foundation for innovation and development of talents, optimize the talent-incentive mechanism, and make it happen that scientific and technological talents are capable and motivated to participate in the innovation activities of “specialized, refined, special and new” SMEs, and provide them with inexhaustible motivation for innovation. In addition, we should take the opportunity of optimizing the business environment to fully stimulate the role of entrepreneurship in technological innovation, and to respect and to protect private enterprises.

　　To vigorously develop " specialized, refined, special and new " SMEs, it is neccesary pay attention to basic investment and strengthen platform construction. Basic research is the initial source of the entire scientific system. It is necessary to accelerate the formation of a long-term mechanism to strengthen applied basic research, continuously achieve major forward-looking and original breakthroughs, and lay a solid scientific foundation for building a new development pattern. Applied research is the endogenous driving force to promote industrial development. We must focus on the construction of a scientific and technological innovation collaboration platform, continuously improve the ability to transform scientific and technological achievements, and achieve an effective connection between the innovation chain and the industrial chain. China must not only give full play to the role of the new nationwide system in basic research, concentrate on overcoming key core technologies and break foreign technology blockades, but also make full use of the advantages of China's super-large market, complete industrial system to increase the speed of innovation and large-scale application capabilities, bridge the gap between applied basic research and industrialization, and realize the "triple jump" from scientific research and innovation to samples then to tradeable commodities.

　　To vigorously develop " specialized, refined, special and new " SMEs, it is necessary to make good use of digital empowerment and strengthen the process of upgrading and transformation. In the era of digital economy, the digital transformation of enterprises is extremely urgent. To vigorously develop " specialized, refined, special and new " SMEs, we must grasp the development trend of digital technology, and promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional SMEs through digital empowerment, and help them transform to " specialized, refined, special and new " SMEs. Due to the long investment cycle and high cost of digital transformation, SMEs are relatively short in technology, capital, talents, etc. The trial and error costs and transformation risks are high, and this results in insufficient endogenous motivation for digital transformation and upgrading, giving rise to the phenomenon of “waiting for death”. Therefore, the government and industry organizations should strengthen their support for the digital transformation of SMEs, make full use of government public data to eliminate the "digital divide" of SMEs, promote the quality and efficiency of SMEs, and promote the transformation of traditional SMEs into " specialized, refined, special and new " SMEs, and then into "little giant" enterprises.

　　—— Originally available on Guangming Daily

　　Dong Zhiyong:

　　Dean, professor, and doctoral tutor of the School of Economics at Peking University, and Editor-in-Chief of Economic Science. The main areas of teaching and research: econometrics, mathematical economics, behavioral economics/experimental economics/behavioral finance.