China's top economic planner announced on May 13 that it will take actions to fuel the transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) toward digitalization, as part of efforts to tide them over the tough time.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) will cooperate with other government departments, leading enterprises, financial institutions, research institutes, and industrial associations to provide online services for SMEs to help them be more digitally savvy.

Efforts will be made to accelerate the digital transformation of enterprises and nurture new business models of the digital economy, said Lin Nianxiu, Deputy Director with the NDRC.

Platform enterprises are invigorated to provide diversified services to empower SMEs with digital technology and lower the threshold for their transformation, said the NDRC.

The country also pledged to build virtual industrial parks and clusters, as well as encourage leading enterprises to help their upstream and downstream enterprises to better embrace digital opportunities.