On September 16, the 17^th China International SME Fair & the 1^st SME International Cooperation Summit, sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the State Administration for Market Regulation and the People's Government of Guangdong Province, was opened in Guangzhou. On September 17, SZSE hosted the SME Investment and Financing Sub-Forum themed "Promoting the Creation of a New Development Pattern through Finance and Supporting the High-Quality Development of SMEs". The sub-forum was aimed to thoroughly implement the guiding principles of important speeches by General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping and the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, vigorously serve the national strategy of innovation-driven development, support the high-quality development of SMEs and the private economy, and push forward the reform and high-level opening-up of the capital market. In strict accordance with the epidemic prevention requirements, the sub-forum was both held at the main venue and livestreamed online. Chief Economist of MIIT Xu Kemin and President & CEO of SZSE Sha Yan attended and addressed the event.

Xu Kemin said that General Secretary Xi Jinping attached great importance to the development of SMEs and called for strengthened financial services for market players and continued support for the innovation-oriented development of SMEs. MIIT will establish and improve the working system for SMEs that centers on three areas of "policies, services and the environment", focuses on "financing promotion and rights & interests protection", and aims to "improve innovation capabilities and professional competency". Through such a system, it will work to improve the environment for the development of SMEs, and further stimulate the vitality of market players; it will intensify the cultivation of quality enterprises in different echelons, and further modernize industrial chains and supply chains; it will also promote synergy between industries and finance, and boost the innovation-oriented development of SMEs.

Sha Yan stressed that serving the innovation-oriented development of SMEs was a major political responsibility of the capital market. Under the leadership of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), SZSE will work unswervingly to both consolidate and develop the public sector and encourage, support, and guide the development of the non-public sector; it will stick to the direction of market-oriented, law-based and internationalized development, reinforce the registration-based IPO system of the ChiNext Board, and learn from the best practice abroad on serving SMEs; centering on tech innovation and strategic emerging industries, it will support growth innovative businesses and startups, particularly the "little giants" with specialized, refined, distinctive or novel features, and launch more innovative products backing the real economy; it will go all out to build itself into a quality innovation capital center and a world-class exchange, and work with all boards and market players to better serve the new development pattern and promote high-quality development.

At the 1-day forum, attendees delivered keynote speeches concerning SME development policies and investment and financing practice, the ways to give full play to the role of the capital market in investment and financing, and how the registration-based IPO system of the ChiNext Board will serve the innovation-oriented development of SMEs. They also had roundtable discussions about "how the capital market will help SMEs become important sources of innovation". At the site, six SMEs with specialized, refined, distinctive or novel features presented road shows through the SZSE investment and financing service platform for innovation and start-ups (V-Next platform). 

The forum was attended by over 100 attendees, including relevant heads of the Bureau of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises of MIIT, the No.2 Department of Market Supervision of CSRC, the Enterprise Research Institute under Development Research Center of the State Council, CSRC Guangdong Bureau, local financial regulatory bureaus, SZSE, Shanghai Stock Exchange, the National Equities Exchange and Quotations and HKEX, as well as representatives of relevant industrial associations, SMEs, financial institutions, research institutes and news media.