Introduction

In the rapidly changing global economy today, SMEs need to be able to respond quickly to market and technological developments. Manufacturing production has become more complex and knowledge intensive, and as such access to pertinent technologies is among the key drivers of competitiveness for SMEs.

SMEs in all industries have to upgrade: use more advanced machines, use more skilled workers, produce better-quality products, use more IT, and interact more closely with relevant agencies in the value chain. Productivity improvements, technology upgrading, continuous improvements in product quality are required efforts, and to stay ahead, SMEs must develop the capability to design and develop new products and processes.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in national economic and social development, as well as in fields of technological innovation. Since reform and opening-up, more than 65% of invention patents, 75% of technological innovation and 80% of new products are developed by SMEs, which are very active in the technological innovation of both high technology sectors such as electronics, information technology, bio-pharmaceuticals and new materials as well as modern service industries such as information consultation, creative design and modern logistics.

Basic situation of Chinese SMEs technological innovation

The high growth since 1960s, also known as ‘the miracle of Han river’, has brought the achievement of rapid and remarkable national economic growth. However, the fruit of growth had been reaped mostly by cities, as we can infer from the geographic location of Han River. Recently, national-scale projects to resolve imbalance of growth between regions has been implemented in full scale. As a part of such projects, some villages are equipped with information technologies on the purpose of balancing growth between cities and farming, mountain and fishing villages. Let us visit these villages, which are called Invils.

Total 338 Invils established through 6 rounds of projects

Take Off of Korean Fried Chicken Brand

‘Brand of most frequently eaten fried chicken in Korea, BBQ’. At the recent survey on franchise brands by one media company, Korean consumers, aged from 20s to 50s, selected 'BBQ' for their most favorite fried chicken brand. One foreign media once praised that the taste of BBQ chicken is not mere an epigone of KFC or Popeye's, but a great taste surpassing those multinational fried chicken brands.

1. Introduction

SMEs often use existing technologies with modifications and improvements. SMEs instead take in economic knowledge from universities or research institutes as spillovers, and then contribute to considerable innovative activities. Knowledge created in one economic agent becomes commercialized by another agent in the knowledge-based economy.

Leonid Alexeiko, vice-principal for scientific work of the Far Eastern Technical University, Doctor of Chemistry, Professor.