High-Quality Development Trend and Path Choice of Specialized, Sophisticated, Distinctive and Novel SMEs.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key contributors to technological innovation. As China’s vanguard for self-reliance and strength in science and technology, specialized, sophisticated, distinctive and novel (SSDN) SMEs have grown into an important motivation for high-quality development, a key stabilizer for the new development paradigm, and a vital force for an innovation-driven China. In recent years, China has been ramping up support for SSDN SMEs, and raised the focus on their development to a new level. At present, some problems and obstacles are befalling the high-quality development of SSDN SMEs, such as imperfect innovation system and mechanism, weak basic research service capabilities, a digital divide in digital transformation, and insufficient vitality of collaboration among players in the innovation ecosystem. In the future, China should promote the high-quality development of SSDN SMEs from system and mechanism, basic input, business environment, and digital empowerment. Specifically, China should increase policy support to consolidate the institutional guarantee for innovative development, build more platforms to form a dynamic innovation ecology, enhance intellectual property protection to spur entrepreneurship, and ramp up upgrading and transformation for the quality and efficiency improvement of traditional enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]