Jointly sponsored by the State Development Planning Commission and Wuxi municipal government, the symposium will be held from January 6 to 8 next year in the city of Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu Province.

A State-level investment and development forum, it aims to further tap the potential of small and medium-sized enterprises and promote their faster and healthier development in the new century, the official said.

China's SMEs began their rapid development in the late 1980s and have made big strides in the past decade as the national economy moves forward at an unprecedented rate.

Although SMEs have made great progress, whether they can maintain the momentum in the future is crucial to the sustainable development of the country's economy, said an official from the State Development Planning Commission.

The official added that the central government has decided to issue some new and more favourable policies to ensure healthy growth in the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-05). SMEs will be given more rights in terms of raw material purchase and will be encouraged to get listed on the stock market.

On the whole, the growth of SMEs is satisfactory and encouraging, the official said, but when examined from a global perspective, their operational structure has some obvious defects and needs to be readjusted.

Another obstacle which could hinder SMEs' development is management quality, the official said. Efforts should also be made to recruit qualified personnel for positions in which they can fully use their expertise.

So far, SMEs have concentrated on traditional industries and manufacturing sectors and their products are not competitive on the world market.

Future plans should emphasize the need to develop high-tech industries, such as information technology, said the official.

(China Daily 12/25/2000)