Recently, seven government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, jointly issued the "Action Plan for Promoting the Coordinated Development of Large, Medium, and Small Enterprises in the Platform Economy (2026-2028)". This plan outlines a clear path for advancing the transformation and upgrading of the platform economy and fostering integrated growth among businesses of different sizes.
What constitutes the platform economy? As a new economic model, it uses internet platforms as a foundation to connect diverse market participants, including large platform companies and a vast number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and service providers.
In Anshan, Liaoning, the intelligent supply chain service platform developed by Delin Land Port Supply Chain Service Co., Ltd. integrates one-stop services such as online transactions, smart logistics, and warehousing and distribution. It has attracted over 40,000 companies and clients from across the steel industry chain. "We leverage technologies like big data and the Internet of Things to build our service platform, gradually transitioning from a traditional logistics firm to a modern supply chain service enterprise," said Wang Feng, the company's chairman.
Connecting supply and demand, driving transformation, and boosting employment—in recent years, the role of China's platform economy in empowering the real economy has become increasingly prominent. Platform companies, in particular, have moved beyond their traditional roles as information intermediaries and matchmakers. They have evolved into new digital infrastructures that integrate elements like data, technology, and application scenarios, becoming crucial supports for enabling the transformation and development of SMEs.
However, challenges such as insufficient industry coordination, uneven development among enterprises, and inefficient flow of resources urgently need to be addressed. An official from the Ministry's Information and Communications Administration stated that China's platform economy is at a critical juncture of transformation and upgrading. There is a pressing need to adapt to the new circumstances and requirements of socio-economic development and technological-industrial change during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and to accelerate the construction of an innovative, integrated, healthy, and efficient development ecosystem.
Examining the action plan, the concept of "coordination" is heavily emphasized.
"Addressing the structural contradictions in the development of large, medium, and small enterprises within the platform economy, the action plan employs a systems-thinking approach to build a multi-dimensional coordination framework, ensuring the orderly and efficient flow and allocation of resources within the ecosystem," said Yu Xiaohui, President of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
Enhancing Innovation Coordination to Strengthen the Industrial Foundation
The plan guides platform companies to bolster their innovation layout in areas like general-purpose large models, industry-specific large models, and intelligent agents within the field of artificial intelligence. It supports qualified regions in establishing incubators for small and medium-sized enterprises and accelerates the cultivation of one-person AI companies. The action plan places "innovation coordination" at the forefront of its key tasks and makes a series of arrangements.
Yu Xiaohui noted that a situation where some large enterprises possess technology but lack application scenarios, while some small firms have ideas but lack resources, leads to a misallocation of resources along the "innovation chain." The plan's deployment around technological innovation, industrial innovation, and innovation services is expected to help resolve the issue of uncoordinated innovation development among enterprises of different sizes.
Advancing Ecosystem Coordination to Build an Inclusive Market Environment
Reshaping the relationship between platforms and SMEs, and constructing a more fair, transparent, standardized, orderly, and efficiently cooperative platform ecosystem, is a key guarantee for achieving coordinated development.
The action plan proposes measures to enhance ecosystem coordination and quality. It includes increasing support for SMEs in quality improvement and brand building, supporting large and small enterprises in jointly expanding overseas markets, and strengthening compliance in platform operations. These measures aim to build a coordinated ecosystem covering compliance, industry, services, and international expansion, promoting mutual empowerment between platforms and the SMEs within their ecosystems.
Deepening Open Coordination to Facilitate the Circulation of Resources and Factors
Openness is an inherent characteristic of the platform economy, but questions of "what to open, to whom, and how" remain deep-seated challenges for businesses.
"Breaking down data silos and facilitating the flow of factors have become urgent tasks in deepening the open collaboration of the platform economy," Yu Xiaohui observed. He noted that the action plan calls for initiatives to expand open coordination, accelerate the formulation of platform openness lists, and guide platform companies to open and share elements like technology, data, and computing power with SMEs. This package of measures is designed to make resources visible, usable, and mobile, continuously removing barriers to the flow of factors.
Looking ahead, with the ongoing evolution of new models like "AI + platform economy," the participants in the platform economy will become more diverse, and its organizational forms and operational mechanisms more complex.
Industry experts believe that all stakeholders should use the implementation of this action plan as a starting point. Efforts should focus on building an open, shared, multi-cooperative, and innovation-active development system for the platform economy. This will allow large enterprises to gain ecosystem vitality through capability openness, enable SMEs to unleash their innovation potential through the flow of factors, and create a virtuous cycle of value co-creation and mutual benefit, thereby elevating the development level of the platform economy to a new stage.
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