Hong Kong Economic Herald:
Fujian province is the starting point where the idea of Digital China took shape and was first put into practice. Several achievements have been made here in digital science and technology. What role have these achievements played in helping micro and small businesses overcome difficulties? Thank you.
Zhao Long:
Thank you for your question. As we all know, Fujian has a prosperous private economy with a great number of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). To fully implement the deployment and requirements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, we have made great efforts to help MSMEs. Specifically, since the COVID-19 outbreak this year, we have advanced epidemic control and promoted economic and social development, making solid progress in stabilizing the six fronts -- employment, finance, foreign trade, inbound investment, domestic investment, and market expectations, and guaranteeing the six priorities -- jobs, daily living needs, food and energy, industrial and supply chains, the interests of market players, and the smooth functioning of grassroots government. We have deepened our efforts to assist sectors that face operation difficulties, as well as MSMEs, to ensure that enterprises can survive and develop. In the first half of this year, more than 47 billion yuan has been saved for enterprises throughout the province through tax and fee cuts, burden easing, and cost reduction. Meanwhile, based on the province's strengths as Digital Fujian, we have made full use of various digital technologies, including big data, to help MSMEs effectively offset the impact of the epidemic. Our efforts were mainly focused on these four areas.
First, by making full use of Financial Services Cloud as a platform. We established a cloud platform for financial services by integrating finance, technology, data, and policies. The platform pooled enterprise data on nearly 4,400 items from 17 government departments covering electricity, taxation, commerce, etc. It then addressed information asymmetry between banks and firms and provided cloud financing services to thousands of enterprises, to effectively address the difficulties and high costs of financing for MSMEs. To date, the Financial Services Cloud platform has helped more than 7,100 enterprises secure their financing needs, totaling 30 billion yuan. During the epidemic, in particular, the platform has seen an explosion in user growth, with a more than 20-fold increase in newly registered users and helped address over 26 billion yuan worth of financing needs.
Second, by encouraging MSMEs to use our cloud service platform. We established a resource center for the industrial internet, introducing them to leading domestic industrial internet companies. We provided enterprises with services, including cloud computing, cloud storage, cloud security, and digital production through the joint efforts of industrial enterprises on the cloud platform and cloud services providers. Some big enterprises are capable of establishing cloud services platforms of their own, while many MSMEs are unable to do so. As a result, we established public services platforms based on the resources of big enterprises and provided services to MSMEs. Up to now, Fujian province has introduced more than 600, high-quality cloud service institutions, launched more than 500 cloud service products and attracted more than 44,000 enterprise users from cloud platforms.
Third, by establishing service platforms including a communication channel connecting enterprises to the provincial government and an app informing users of beneficial policies for enterprises. Using big data technology, these platforms published more than 800 pieces of enterprise-related policies pooled from various government departments, through which people got to know related beneficial policies provided to enterprises by the country and the province in a direct and timely manner. The platforms removed the last crucial hurdle in policy transfer and implementation, ensuring that MSMEs could access policy information more rapidly, conveniently, and precisely. Meanwhile, we strengthened big data analytics and quickly pooled monitoring data on 167 items from 14 departments, including electricity, telecommunications, and taxation, to precisely keep abreast of production resumption and help decision-makers provide targeted assistance to enterprises.
Fourth, by deepening the application of big data in promoting employment. We planned and established a provincial employment database, through which employment information in different regions could be posted and shared by users all over the province, helping to address the needs of both enterprises and job seekers. To provide effective employment services to MSMEs, we enhanced the application of big data analytics in employment, precisely assessed the demand of the human resources market, and forecasted the total demand for the next year, as well as the separate demand of different sectors and professions based on a big data forecasting model. Up to now, the database has provided services to 437,000 enterprises and 24.91 million people from various groups in cities and townships.
