【正文】
rden and fierce market petition. On the whole, it is already difficult to maintain the previous growth momentum in the number of SMEs as seen in the 1980s and 1990s. Since the late 1970s, the reform and openingup policy and objective terms of the phase of economic takeoff have provided a good external environment for the development of SMEs. Therefore, the increasing number and variety of emerging SMEs not only impelled the development of local and national economies, but also became an important indicator for a boost in the Chinese economy. Today, SMEs are getting stronger and continue to contribute to the development of Chinese society and economy. They exert the same function as SMEs in other countries, which is mainly expressed by promoting employment, technological innovation, training of entrepreneurs, developing international economic relationships, accelerating market petition, maintaining economic vitality, and so on. Comparatively speaking, the special nature of Chinese SMEs manifests their specific influence on the transition of China’s economic system and social structure. For example, the development of nonpublicowned SMEs not only changes the enterprise ownership structure, but also lays an important foundation in the process of developing China’s market economy. At present, the number of nonpublicowned Chinese enterprises far exceeds the number of stateowned firms. Excluding over 20 million individuallyowned enterprises, the proportion of formally registered nonstateowned legal entities grew from to percent between 1996 and 2020 (Table 2). The proportion of nonstateowned enterprises also far surpassed stateowned ones. According to the statistics on industrial valueadded output, in the first three months of 2020, the stateowned and collective economy fell to 30 percent, while the nonpublicowned economy jumped to 70 percent. Since China’s reform and opening up, SMEs have gradually enjoyed a healthy external environment for development. By reforming the system of a planned economy, the nation relaxed its limitations on the development of SMEs so that urban collective enterprises, township and village enterprises, individual businesses, private enterprises, foreignfunded enterprises and joint ventures could rapidly develop. Regarding the various forms of SME ownership, different development policies were adopted. For stateowned SMEs, from its efforts to “decentralize authority to release benefits” (fangquan rangli) in 1978 to “grasp the large and let go of the small” (zhuada fangxiao) adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee in 1995, the government’s policy has focused on reforming the old system which did not adapt to the demand of a market economy. In the mid1990s, China adopted the policy of “deregulation to render agile” (fangkai gaohuo) and