The term "Specialized, Sophisticated, Unique and Innovative" refers to the development characteristics of enterprises, namely specialization, refinement, distinctiveness, and innovativeness. Through policy support and resource inclination, Shanghai promotes the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in this direction to enhance the competitiveness and innovation capacity of the industrial chain.
"Specialized, Sophisticated, Unique and Innovative" is an abbreviation for "specialization, refinement, distinctiveness, and innovativeness", with the specific connotations as follows:
- Specialization: Enterprises focus on their core businesses, build competitive edges in specific links of the industrial chain, and provide high-quality supporting products or services.
- Refinement: Enterprises improve efficiency and quality through refined management, production, and services, thereby forming core competitiveness.
- Distinctiveness: Products or services possess uniqueness—such as leveraging distinctive resources, technologies, or craftsmanship—to meet the needs of specific markets.
- Innovativeness: Emphasizing innovation-driven development, enterprises hold independent intellectual property rights, boast high technological content, and demonstrate significant development potential.
Shanghai’s specialized, sophisticated, unique and innovative enterprises exhibit the following features:
- Outstanding Comprehensive Strength: The average R&D intensity of these enterprises reaches 8.36%, with an average of 5 invention patents per enterprise. The dominant products of some enterprises account for over 10% of the market share in their respective niche segments.
- Clear Industrial Focus: Approximately 80% of these enterprises directly provide supporting services for well-known large enterprises, and two-thirds of them operate in key fields such as integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence.
- Improved Policy Support System: Shanghai provides support in financing, digital empowerment, talent housing, and other aspects through special measures (e.g., Several Measures of Shanghai for Promoting the Development and Growth of Specialized, Sophisticated, Unique and Innovative Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). It has also established an application mechanism of "year-round acceptance and batch announcement".
Shanghai aims to address the "bottleneck" issues in the industrial chain by fostering specialized, sophisticated, unique and innovative enterprises, drive the transformation and upgrading of SMEs, and further cultivate specialized, sophisticated, unique and innovative "little giant" enterprises and manufacturing single-product champions, so as to serve the "dual circulation" development pattern.