Premier Li Keqiang on Oct 15 talked with entrepreneurs via video link from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where he announced the official launch of the 2020 National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week.

This year the week-long activity has been held via online channels, yet people's enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and innovation vitality is still on the rise, Premier Li said.

Hundreds of millions of market entities with strong resilience have played a basic and supportive role in stabilizing the fundamentals of the Chinese economy and helping it resume and rebound quickly, despite the impact of the epidemic and the world's economic recession, the Premier said.

In recent months, increasing new market entities and startups supported employment, and mass entrepreneurship and innovation has played an important part.

The next step would be maintaining steady economic recovery and growth trends to register positive growth for the whole year. Such growth would be supported by securing and invigorating hundreds of millions of market entities, Premier Li said.

Mass entrepreneurship, innovation brings about great number of market entities, jobs

The Premier said that facing the complex domestic and international situations, the country has continued to further reform and opening-up, implemented the strategy of innovation-driven development, carried out mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and achieved remarkable results.

He said mass entrepreneurship and innovation has helped create a large number of market entities with strong resilience and many job positions.

With the strong growing momentum nurtured from mass entrepreneurship and innovation, small, medium-sized and micro businesses have constantly grown, and large enterprises also have gathered resources for faster upgrade, Premier Li said.

It created more supply and also boosted new consumption, significantly changing the socio-economic structure and production and lifestyle, the Premier said.

"Amid the fight against the epidemic, mass entrepreneurship and innovation have played an irreplaceable role in online shopping, contactless delivery, work and exercise at home, big data and other businesses for indoor life," the Premier said.

He also said that mass entrepreneurship and innovation have boosted the administrative reform and improved efficiency and capability of innovation.

Policy support needed for those involved in entrepreneurship and innovation

Premier Li said the priority is to further increase the policy support for the market entities involved in entrepreneurship and innovation.

Those entities, emerging in large numbers in the tide of the market economy, are like boats on the sea, said the Premier, who added that they need support policies to set sail and cope with adversity.

He noted that the government has introduced preferential policies this year, paired with 2 trillion yuan of newly-added fiscal funds directly channeled to the grassroots, to help the medium, small and micro enterprises overcome difficulties.

By doing this, these enterprises, as well as individual businesses, have felt burdens largely eased, and the number of new market entities sees a continuous increase, which bolstered the employment, the foundations of the economy, and the economic growth and recovery, he added.

This year local governments shouldered 85 percent of burdens in cutting taxes and fees, and their moves were supported by the mechanism of directly transferring the newly-added funds to grassroots units, said the Premier, adding this mechanism has greatly improved the efficiency in implementing the macro policies.

In the next, efforts should be continued to implement the preferential policies, especially to increase supports for the medium, small and micro enterprises, the individual businesses, as well as the market entities involved in the entrepreneurship and innovation, Premier Li said.

He called for efforts to maintain the continuity and stability of the policies, improve the mechanism of directly transferring funds to the grassroots, and enhance efficiency in the use of funds, to help those market entities survive and come alive with a good momentum of development.

Premier Li said threshold for starting enterprises should be further lowered and business environment improved. "Barriers to mechanism involving entrepreneurship and innovation have been removed on the whole, but problems still exist."

He stressed the importance of tax and fee cuts, administrative streamlining, support for market entities especially startups, and opening-up of higher-level.

Premier Li encouraged big enterprises to build more innovative platforms as a way to promote mutual development with smaller firms and private makers.

He also called for greater autonomy of scientific research institutions, so that more academic achievements could transform into productivity through innovation.

"A nation's future lies in entrepreneurship and innovation," he said, "Let us make the utmost efforts to support every newly-established business and care for every creative endeavor."