Notice on Carrying out the 2025 Certification and Review of Specialized and New "Little Giant" Enterprises

Departments in charge of small and medium-sized enterprises in provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, cities specifically designated in the state plan, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps:

　　According to the "Interim Measures for the Gradient Cultivation and Management of High-Quality Small and Medium-sized Enterprises" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"), the 2025 recognition and review work for specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises is now being organized. The relevant matters are hereby notified as follows:

　　I. Enterprise Application Requirements

　　(1) Provincial-level specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises may apply for the seventh batch of specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises. The fourth batch recognized in 2022 and the first batch that passed the review may apply for re-examination. No fees will be charged for related applications.

　　(2) Enterprises only need to truthfully and independently fill out the application form and provide relevant supporting materials as required to complete the application. Our Ministry's High-Quality SME Gradient Cultivation Platform (http://zjtx.miit.gov.cn) provides training videos on application policy interpretation and system operation manuals.

　　(3) Our Ministry has not entrusted any institution to carry out specialized and innovative application services. The review process uses methods such as "segmented review," "double random (random selection of experts, immediate random assignment of review tasks)," and "blind review" to ensure fairness and impartiality. Enterprises are advised to beware of malicious intermediaries spreading false information and seeking illegal profits.

　　(4) Applying enterprises must meet the relevant recognition standards for specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises as stipulated in the "Measures." Relevant indicators must be strictly adhered to according to the "Explanation of Some Indicators and Requirements" in Annex 4 of the "Measures."

　　(5) To reduce the application burden on enterprises, they are not required to provide third-party certificates for "domestic market share of the previous year," domestic invention patent certificates, and other supporting materials (supporting materials related to overseas invention patents, integrated circuit layout designs, and other Category I intellectual property rights still need to be provided). Enterprises only need to truthfully state market share and fill in the number of invention patents. Our Ministry will strengthen data sharing with the National Intellectual Property Office and other departments, and patent data will be based on data provided by the National Intellectual Property Office.

　　(6) To improve the recognition standards for specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises, applications and reviews from enterprises with operating income below 50 million yuan will not be accepted this year.

　　(7) Applications and reviews for specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises will be conducted through a combination of online filling and offline submission. Online filling will be from May 14 to June 5, 2025, on our Ministry's High-Quality SME Gradient Cultivation Platform. Offline submission shall follow the requirements of the local SME authorities where the enterprise is located, and offline data should be consistent with online data.

　　(8) Relevant financial data of enterprises shall be based on audit reports issued by accounting firms. Please upload the coded electronic original documents, which have been filed by the accounting firms on the Ministry of Finance's Certified Public Accountant Industry Unified Supervision Platform (http://acc.mof.gov.cn), to the High-Quality SME Gradient Cultivation Platform. Inconsistencies will affect the application results.

　　(9) Please remind accounting firms to include the two indicators of main business income and main business cost in the audit report.

　　(10) Our Ministry will introduce data extraction, artificial intelligence, big data, and other analytical tools to strengthen the analysis, comparison, and logical judgment of application data, strictly preventing material packaging and data falsification. If data or material falsification is found, our Ministry will cancel the titles of innovative SMEs, specialized and innovative SMEs, and specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises according to the "Measures," and prohibit enterprises from reapplying for at least three years. Cases involving fraud of financial funds will be reported to public security authorities. Relevant situations involving accounting firms will be reported to industry authorities.

　　II. Recommendation Requirements

　　(1) Departments in charge of small and medium-sized enterprises in provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, cities specifically designated in the state plan, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (hereinafter collectively referred to as provincial-level SME authorities) are responsible for organizing the preliminary review recommendation of new applications for specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises and the recommendation of enterprises for review.

　　(2) Provincial-level SME authorities should select qualified enterprises to fill out the "Seventh Batch Specialized and Innovative 'Little Giant' Enterprise Application Form" (Annex 1) or the "2022 Recognized and Reviewed Specialized and Innovative 'Little Giant' Enterprise Review Application Form" (Annex 3), and propose supporting material requirements based on actual conditions. After preliminary verification, they should submit recommendation opinions.

　　(3) Provincial-level SME authorities must conscientiously fulfill their responsibilities, strictly control quality, strengthen the review of the authenticity of enterprise financial data and technological innovation, ensure consistency between application form data and supporting materials, and improve recommendation quality. They should enhance service efforts and organize resources to provide comprehensive free consultation and guidance services for applying enterprises. According to last year's application and recognition notice, provinces with a large number of sixth batch recommendations but low pass rates will have their seventh batch recommendation numbers limited (to be notified separately). At the same time, based on this year's seventh batch recommendation and pass rates, the number of eighth batch recommendations next year will also be limited.

　　(4) Enterprises already recognized as Ministry of Industry and Information Technology manufacturing single champion demonstration enterprises or single champion products will no longer be recommended to apply for the seventh batch of specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises; enterprises with controlling relationships with recognized specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises or enterprises producing similar main products within the same group will not be recommended; for specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises recognized and reviewed in 2022, if not recommended for review, reasons must be explained.

　　(5) Enterprises that have had major safety, quality, environmental pollution accidents, or serious breaches of trust, tax evasion, and other illegal activities in the past three years, or are found to have data falsification, will not be recommended.

　　(6) Considering the current situation, the indicator "average growth rate of main business income in the past two years not less than 5%" will not be required for enterprises applying for review of specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises this year. New applicants for the seventh batch of specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises still need to meet the indicator requirement of "average growth rate of main business income in the past two years not less than 5%."

　　(7) Provincial-level SME authorities will conduct centralized preliminary review and recommendation work from June 5 to June 25, 2025. During this period, they may contact enterprises that have completed applications to supplement and upload supporting materials as needed. Before June 25, 2025, one copy each of the official document with official seal, the seventh batch specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprise application form (Annex 1, with the enterprise's official seal), the recommendation summary form (Annex 2), the 2022 recognized and reviewed specialized and innovative "Little Giant" enterprise review application form (Annex 3, with the enterprise's official seal), and the recommendation summary form (Annex 4) should be sent by EMS to: Small and Medium Enterprise Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, postal code: 100804.

　　III. Notes

　　(1) According to previous years' experience, some enterprises forget their login account and password for the High-Quality SME Gradient Cultivation Platform. It is recommended that applying enterprises log in to the platform in advance to confirm.

　　(2) Paper copies of supporting materials should be properly kept by provincial-level SME authorities for future reference and do not need to be submitted to our Ministry. Provincial-level SME authorities should ensure data authenticity through organizing on-site inspections, third-party data verification, financial statement comparison, and other methods.

　　(3) Our department will organize the review and on-site spot checks of the recommended enterprises from each province (the list of enterprises recommended by each separately planned city will be summarized by province, the same below) in accordance with the requirements and review process of the "Measures", and finally form the list of the seventh batch of specialized and new "Little Giant" enterprises and the list of specialized and new "Little Giant" enterprises that have passed the re-examination. Before the issuance of the re-examination passed list, the title of specialized and new "Little Giant" enterprises recognized and re-examined in 2022 remains valid; after the issuance of the re-examination passed list, the title of specialized and new "Little Giant" enterprises recognized and re-examined in 2022 will automatically become invalid, and the enterprises on the new list shall prevail.

　　Attachment:

         1. Application Form for the Seventh Batch of Specialized and New "Little Giant" Enterprises.wps

         2. Summary Table of Recommendations for the Seventh Batch of Specialized and New "Little Giant" Enterprises.wps

         3. Re-examination Application Form for Specialized and New "Little Giant" Enterprises Recognized and Re-examined in 2022.wp

         4. Summary Table of Re-examination Status for Specialized and New "Little Giant" Enterprises Recognized and Re-examined in 2022.wps

　　General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

　　May 14, 2025