The COVID-19 epidemic outbreak has thrown inevitably big shocks to the economy, 
putting a damper on business for many small and medium-sized enterprises 
(SMEs). Over the past month, China has introduced a raft of 800 support 
policies at the national and local levels, including reducing the burden on 
enterprises, increasing financial support, increasing fiscal and tax subsidies, 
supporting stable employment and optimizing government services, to ease the 
impact of the epidemic on Chinese enterprises and global economic supply chains.

On Mar. 19, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China 
implemented an action plan to boost the revival of SMEs through digitalized 
solutions. The plan emphasizes the use of information technology and digital 
tools to help the SMEs to increase prevention and control of epidemics, and to 
resume production and operations as soon as possible.

China International SME Fair (CISMEF), which has been held for 16 consecutive 
years, is an active participant in this action plan. As an important service 
platform to promote exchanges and cooperation between SMEs in China and over 
the world, CISMEF takes the lead in responding to the impact of the epidemic by 
optimizing digital services to enterprises. The platform "Exhibition Online" 
launched last year is extending the traditional convention and exhibition mode, 
assisting SMEs to continue to expand the market through e-commerce, big data, 
cloud computing and other digital technologies.

"We are building a communication, exchange and matchmaking platform for 
participating enterprises, and cooperating with well-known e-commerce 
enterprises to set up a special zone to promote the products of SMEs to Chinese 
and foreign buyers. The online platform has also added columns such as 
'Fighting against COVID-19', 'Voices from SMEs', and 'Guidelines to resume work 
and operation'. We hope to help SMEs at home and abroad cope with the crisis 
with these useful attempts," said Wu Hong, deputy director of the Organizing 
Committee Secretariat of CISMEF.

The industrial Internet exhibition will play an important role in CISMEF of 
this year. At present, a number of industrial clusters in digital 
transformation complex, industrial Internet benchmark enterprises, 
new-generation information technology service providers, and intelligent system 
equipment vendors are participating in this exhibition, which will meet the 
development needs of telecommuting, digitization, and popularization of 
industrial Internet.

Recently, as the epidemic situation of COVID-19 in China is getting better, 
SMEs are resuming work and production gradually. With the help of service 
platforms such as CISMEF, China actively supports SMEs to beef up the steady 
and healthy development of the economy, which will release a positive signal to 
the world.
  
Source: The Organizing Committee Secretariat of CISMEF