A new action plan has been unveiled to foster coordinated growth between large and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) within China's platform economy, addressing structural imbalances and promoting innovation.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and six other government departments have jointly released the "Action Plan for Promoting the Coordinated Development of Large and Small-to-Medium Enterprises in the Platform Economy (2026-2028)". This plan establishes a clear roadmap for the transformation and upgrading of the platform economy and for facilitating integrated development across businesses of all sizes.
Platform economy, as a new economic model, utilizes internet platforms as a medium to connect diverse business entities, including large platform companies, a vast number of SMEs, and service providers. In recent years, its role in empowering the real economy through functions like connecting supply and demand, driving transformation, and boosting employment has become increasingly prominent. However, challenges such as insufficient industry collaboration, uneven development among enterprises, and impediments to the flow of production factors urgently require solutions.
An official from MIIT's Information and Communication Administration noted that China's platform economy is at a critical juncture of transformation. There is a pressing need to align with the new circumstances and requirements of socio-economic development and technological-industrial changes during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and to accelerate the construction of an innovative, integrated, healthy, and efficient development ecosystem.
Reviewing the action plan, the concept of "coordination" is heavily emphasized. Yu Xiaohui, President of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), stated that the plan addresses the structural contradictions in the development of large enterprises and SMEs within the platform economy. It employs a systems-thinking approach to build a multi-dimensional collaborative framework, enabling the orderly flow and efficient allocation of factors within the ecosystem.
The plan places "innovation coordination" at the forefront of its key tasks. It outlines a series of arrangements, including guiding platform companies to strengthen their innovation layout in areas like general-purpose large models, industry-specific large models, and intelligent agents within the field of artificial intelligence (AI). It also supports qualified regions in establishing SME incubators and accelerates the cultivation of AI-powered "one-person companies."
Yu Xiaohui pointed out that a situation where some large enterprises possess technology but lack application scenarios, while some SMEs have innovative ideas but lack resources, leads to resource misallocation along the "innovation chain." The plan's deployments around scientific and technological innovation, industrial innovation, and innovation services are expected to help resolve the problem of uncoordinated innovation development between large and small enterprises.
Reshaping the relationship between platforms and SMEs to build a fairer, more transparent, standardized, orderly, and efficiently cooperative platform ecosystem is seen as a key guarantee for achieving coordinated development. The action plan proposes initiatives for ecological synergy and quality improvement. These include increasing support for SMEs in quality enhancement and brand building, supporting collaborative international expansion for businesses of all sizes, and strengthening operational compliance for platforms. The aim is to construct an ecological synergy system covering compliance, industry, services, and global expansion, thereby fostering mutual empowerment between platforms and SMEs within the ecosystem.
While openness is an inherent attribute of the platform economy, questions regarding "what to open, to whom, and how" remain deep-seated concerns for businesses. Yu Xiaohui observed that breaking down data silos and facilitating the flow of factors have become urgent tasks for deepening open collaboration in the platform economy. The action plan mandates the implementation of open coordination and expansion initiatives. It calls for accelerating the formulation of platform openness lists and guiding platform enterprises to expedite the open sharing of technical, data, and computing power resources with SMEs. This package of measures is designed to make resources visible, usable, and mobile, continuously removing barriers to the flow of production factors.
Industry insiders believe that all stakeholders should use the implementation of this action plan as a starting point. The focus should be on building an open, shared, diversified, cooperative, and innovation-active development system for the platform economy. This approach would allow large enterprises to gain ecosystem vitality through capability openness, enable SMEs to unleash their innovation potential through factor circulation, and create a virtuous cycle of value co-creation and mutual benefit. The ultimate goal is to elevate the development level of China's platform economy to a new stage.
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