Premier Li Keqiang urged further efforts to boost mass entrepreneurship and innovation in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), during the State Council’s executive meeting on June 22, reiterating what he said about this policy in previous meetings over the past year.

At the request of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council, local regions and departments have implemented an innovation-driven development strategy and promoted mass entrepreneurship and innovation in recent years, Premier Li said.

The efforts helped nurture a large number of market entities, which greatly supported employment — especially for college graduates — boosted new growth engines, and advanced the internal dynamic of economic development, he added.

“During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), the government should push forward mass entrepreneurship and innovation at a deeper level, better implement the requirements of new development concept, and stimulate market vitality on a greater level to boost development, expand employment and benefit people’s livelihoods,” the Premier said.

Employment provides momentum for development and wealth

Efforts to promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation in recent years have had an obvious impact on employment, said the Premier. He said that most startups are driven by new growth engines and directly provide diversified market-oriented products and services to consumers, which has brought significant changes to China’s economic structure, greatly boosting consumption and reinforcing economic vitality.

He stressed the continuous efforts to boost employment through entrepreneurship. To adapt to major changes in the labor supply and demand as well as more diversified job forms and increased market flexibility, he required further boosting mass entrepreneurship and innovation, cultivating more dynamic and stable market entities, encouraging key groups, including college graduates and migrant workers, to start businesses and find jobs through multiple channels, and help micro, small and medium enterprises create jobs.

Employment provides momentum for development and sources of wealth, Premier Li said, adding that for a country with more than 1.4 billion people, China’s mass entrepreneurship and innovation not only provided broad innovation and startup chances to the masses, but also helped stabilize employment and boost economic vitality.

Better environment for mass entrepreneurship, innovation

Unswerving efforts should be made to create a more favorable environment for mass entrepreneurship and innovation, the Premier said.

Administration should be further streamlined, powers delegated, with unreasonable obstacles removed. Authorities should promote innovation of enterprises of all types, encourage key enterprises in industrial chains to better pioneer, open factor resources including market, innovation, and capital, construct cultivation centers for entrepreneurship and innovation that cover R&D, incubation, investment, and more, and facilitate the development of small and medium enterprises that are specialized, and take the lead in subdivision areas in manufacturing, Premier Li said.

Fair supervision should be strengthened to protect the legal rights of micro, small, and medium enterprises as well as individual businesses.

In the past, it was the incubators and demonstration bases constructed by the government that supported mass entrepreneurship and innovation. Now leading enterprises in industrial chains should be encouraged to play a part.

"We have full faith in China's economy by virtue of its tremendous resilience even in the face of the most severe impact of the COVID-19 epidemic last year," Premier Li said. "We should further push forward the integral development of small, medium and large enterprises, and encourage macro, small, and medium enterprises and individual businesses to mushroom, to underpin employment and wealth accession."

Policy incentives should keep going

The Premier took an inspection tour to the shuttle innovation factory established by private enterprises in Changchun city, Northeast China's Jilin province, last week. Before his departure, the Premier asked the entrepreneurs whether they faced with any other problems.

An entrepreneur replied that he expected more financial preferential policies for micro and small entrepreneurs. Premier Li said that the country will step up related support and energize their development.

At an executive meeting of the State Council on June 22, the Premier Li required strengthened policy incentives for entrepreneurship and innovation, sound policy implementation for tax exemptions and deductions, extra tax deductions on R&D expenses, and incremental tax rebates in VAT.

And further efforts should be made to expand financing channels for mass entrepreneurship and innovation, improve inclusive financing, and encourage social capital to establish guiding funds for mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

Meanwhile, the government should encourage people with flexible employment to participate in the pilot housing provident fund system, attract more overseas talent, and encourage some entrepreneurship bases to be more international.

"Related policy incentives should continue to make achievements," the Premier said. "Macro-policies should center on market entities, particularly on micro, small, and medium enterprises as well as individual businesses."