China’s SME development index edges up in Q4 2024

An index tracking the development of China's small and medium enterprises (SMEs) edged up in the fourth quarter of 2024, marked by improved confidence and market demand, said an official of the China Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CASME).

According to the data released by CASME on Sunday, the development index of SMEs in China edged up 0.1 points to 89.0 in the fourth quarter of 2024.

In the fourth quarter, both the comprehensive business index, which indicates the overall conditions for enterprises, and the market index, which reflects the supply and demand for enterprise orders, production sales and inventory, rose by 0.1 points from the previous quarter.

SMEs in China operated smoothly last year, with their vitality and motivation fully released. In the last quarter of 2024, their confidence in development was strengthened due to the country's stock policies and incremental policies.

"The industrial growth was good [in the fourth quarter of 2024], playing a strong driving role. The annual industrial index rose by 0.3 points, with the efficiency gradually improved. Fixed asset investment in China showed a recovery growth, and companies' willingness to invest also increased," said Ma Bin, executive vice president of CASME.

In 2024, SMEs in China accelerated their transformation and upgrading, with digitalization, intelligence, and green development becoming the main targets.

The industrialization rate of effective invention patents for SMEs has reached 55.1 percent, continuing the rise for two consecutive years.

The average research and development investment of China's "little giant" enterprises, referring to the novel elites of SMEs that are engaged in manufacturing, specialize in a niche market, and boast cutting-edge technologies, accounted for seven percent of their operating income, according to CASME. Currently, China has more than 140,000 SMEs that use special and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products or those who have been awarded individual manufacturing champion or named national high-tech enterprise, among which more than 600,000 are tech-driven and innovation-oriented ones, said the CASME data.

China’s SME development index edges up in Q4 2024

More than 1,000 coal mines in China have adopted intelligent systems, as their application expands from pilot projects to large-scale deployment, the China National Coal Association said recently.

Statistics show that by the end of 2025, a total of 1,066 coal mines nationwide have introduced smart systems, with such technologies now supporting more than 65 percent of the country's coal production capacity. The number of autonomous mining trucks in operation surpassed 4,000 units, roughly doubling on an annual basis.

The rapid adoption of smart mining is driven by robust domestic capabilities in intelligent equipment and technology. In Beijing, a newly deployed underground Internet of Things (IoT) precision positioning and management system links workers, positioning cards and operating zones, while also enabling health monitoring. Its core technologies and components are fully domestically developed and have been applied in coal mines and coal preparation plants. "This underground positioning system we've developed has a positioning deviation of less than 20 centimeters when a person or device is stationary. Even when a person or device is moving at high speeds, the margin of error remains minimal. A single device can cover a radius of 800 meters," said Wu Fengdong, general manager of China Coal Beijing Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Coal Group Corporation.

Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–2025), cumulative investment in smart mining has exceeded 107.1 billion yuan (about 15.6 billion U.S. dollars), with intelligent technologies now widely applied, accelerating the shift from traditional mining to modern, technology-driven extraction.

Over 60 pct of China's coal production capacity uses smart technology by end of 2025