The measures follow a 31-point package of support for private business published in July.
On August 1, eight Chinese ministries issued 28 measures to support the private economy, vowing to provide fair access for private firms to participate in major national projects and technological undertakings, increasing financial and land support, and strengthening legal protection of the private firms, sending another resounding signal that the country will further ratchet up support for the private sector.
The adopted measures followed up on the recently released large package of support for private business consisting of 31 points. While the latter is more of a program document, outlining the key role of private companies in the development of the economy and general principles of support, the 28 measures are its practical implementation, concrete steps with the indication of the responsible implementing agency.
An important point in both documents — and the leitmotif of political decisions and actions of the Chinese authorities in recent times — is support for the development of the platform economy, says Maria Belyaeva, an expert at the BRICS Competition Centre.
"Platforms that have already been noted as active actors in stimulating employment and consumption will also be positioned as exemplary investors. One of the measures involves regular selection of successful investment cases of platforms — when they invest, for example, in strategically important for China AI projects, new energy, production of key technologies and other socially useful projects,"
the expert explains.
The Ministry of Industry and Informatization, the Ministry of Commerce, SAMR and the People's Bank will make the selection. Earlier, the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC) has already highlighted 10 "exemplary" investment cases of three major technology companies. These are the tech giants that have suffered the most from the regulatory campaign (Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan) — and the market and expert community took the recognition from the NDRC as one of the signals that the campaign is over.
The issue of competition development is mentioned so far without specifics, at the program level. Nevertheless, a rather detailed instruction is given: to treat all companies equally, to strengthen antitrust enforcement aimed at curbing abuse of dominant position, not to force cooperation with selected suppliers of goods and services, to regularly publish "negative" lists of actions for interference in market activities, to fight local protectionism, market sharing, forced transactions, etc.
"This is in line with China's approach to regulation in general - emphasizing the equal importance of development and regulation. In other words, no matter how tough the regulatory steps may seem, in the long term they will still lead to the active development of the industry,"
emphasizes Maria Belyaeva.
