SMEs

A man wearing a face mask looks at a robot at the China National Convention Centre, the venue for the upcoming the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing on 3 September 2020. (Wang Zhao/AFP)
Technology

Chinese villagers: The unsung heroes behind China's rapid AI development

By Yin Ruizhi 17 Nov 2020
Yin Ruizhi points out that China’s AI industry was able to scale up so quickly thanks to an army of rural folk ready to do the laborious yet essential task of data annotation.
An elderly person wearing a protective masks sits in front of shuttered stores near a hutong neighborhood in Beijing, China, on 18 March 2020. (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)
Economy

Falling revenue, absent staff... Tough road ahead for China's SMEs

By Chen Jing 23 Mar 2020
Micro, small, and medium enterprises assets account for 77% of the total assets of Chinese enterprises, while their annual revenue contributes 68% of the total amount of annual revenue of Chinese enterprises. Chen Jing, Lianhe Zaobao’s Shanghai correspondent reports that as the coronavirus outbreak in China eases off, SMEs in China are doing their level best to get their businesses up and running again. But the way forward looks to be all uphill.