September 3, 2026 (InvestinChina.asia) – The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and nine other ministries and commissions have jointly issued the 15th Five-Year Plan for Promoting the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, pledging to scale up direct financing support and establish the National SME Development Fund Phase II to steer social capital toward early-stage, small, long-horizon and hard-technology investments.
The Plan, bearing the document number MIIT Joint Regulatory Letter [2026] No. 290 and dated September 1, was released by MIIT together with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Commerce, the People’s Bank of China, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the Financial Regulatory Authority, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
Under the section on strengthening direct financing support, the Plan sets out four parallel channels. Regulators will intensify IPO cultivation for SMEs by building a cultivation pool for high-quality listings and promoting regular equity-financing matchmaking. They will deepen the construction of “little giants” dedicated boards on regional equity markets, develop a high-quality “technology board” in the bond market to support eligible SMEs in bond financing, and vigorously expand venture capital — headlined by the establishment of the National SME Development Fund Phase II — to drive private capital to back companies that are early-stage, small in scale, long-horizon and hard-tech in nature.
The phrase “invest early, invest small, invest long-term, and invest in hard technology” has become the defining mandate of the Phase II fund. It directly addresses a structural gap in China’s venture landscape, where private capital has historically favored late-stage, mature projects, leaving seed- and early-stage hard-tech founders starved of patient capital.
The Plan lays out quantitative targets for 2030: overall revenue and total assets of SMEs will grow steadily; per capita operating income of above-scale SMEs will rise by roughly 15% cumulatively; internal R&D spending of above-scale industrial SMEs will grow at an average annual rate of over 8%; the number of little giants — highly specialized, sophisticated, distinctive and innovative SMEs — will reach 22,000; and national-level characteristic SME industrial clusters will hit 600. The Plan also calls for a digital-and-intelligent transformation of SMEs, with 95% of specialized and innovative SMEs reaching Level 2 digital maturity and 80% reaching Level 3, while 50 Chinese-foreign SME cooperation zones will be established.
Beyond financing, the Plan deploys seven key tasks spanning enterprise cultivation, digital-and-green development, factor supply, service system building, and legal-policy safeguards, complemented by seven special projects covering gradient cultivation, quality and branding, digital transformation, industrial clusters, financing promotion, talent services, and public services.
The establishment of the Phase II fund follows the momentum built by Phase I, which focused on backing specialized and innovative enterprises through sub-funds and direct investment. With the Phase II vehicle now written into the 15th Five-Year planning document, policymakers are signaling a sustained, government-led push to cultivate patient capital for the country’s hard-tech start-ups — a move designed to fortify the foundations of new-quality productive forces and advance the nation’s drive toward new industrialization.