Over 90% of SMEs in China resume operation: ministry

BEIJING - About 91 percent of China's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) had resumed operation as of Monday after disruptions caused by COVID-19, official data showed.

Some 93 percent of SMEs in the manufacturing and construction sectors had resumed work, while around 87 percent of SMEs in the hotel and catering sectors restarted business, said Huang Libin, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), at a press conference Wednesday.

China has rolled out a series of targeted measures to support SMEs, which were among the hardest hit by the epidemic.

Policies such as cuts in banks' reserve requirement ratios as well as special relending and rediscount programs have offered low-cost loans of 2.85 trillion yuan ($400 billion) to firms, especially micro, small and medium-sized enterprises as well as individual businesses, noted Miao Wei, head of the MIIT.

The country will continue to implement policy incentives and step up financial support for SMEs, while helping them to develop expertise in specific fields, Miao said.