China's special fund invests over 6b yuan in SME projects

BEIJING — A special fund established to support the country's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has allocated more than 6 billion yuan (about $894 million) of investments in SMEs.

The national fund for the development of SMEs has completed investment in 222 projects, mainly from the emerging industries with strategic importance, including high-end manufacturing, new energy, new materials and biological medicine, said Wang Jiangping, vice-minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The country has adopted numbers of measures to support the sound development of SMEs, with authorities releasing a guideline in early April to facilitate the healthy development of SMEs.

The guideline calls for more attention to problems impeding further growth of SMEs, such as rising costs, financing difficulties and inadequate innovation capability.

China announced the fund, which has subscribed capital of 19.5 billion yuan, on Sept 1, 2015.