Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) drive the sources of economic vitality and, more importantly, create jobs and improve people’s livelihoods. In China, however, a conflict persists between the importance of SMEs and their financing difficulties, which has raised an academic concern as to the issue of SME financial services.

Based on a long-term follow-up study on SME financial services, the Mintai Institute of Finance and Banking (CUFE) attempted to establish a system of market analysis for SME financial services beginning in 2008.
In May 2009, the Institute officially launched the Annual Report of SME Finance in China, the first of a series of annual reports, which depicts the full view of the Chinese SME financial market at the present stage in an all-round manner, covering the major institutions and markets for SME financial services, offering a complete collation and summary of the current state of SME financial services, and providing policy recommendations to address the most urgent issues.

From 2008 to 2013, five consecutive development reports on China’s SME financial services have been issued.Through concerted effort for five years, the research group, has consistently adhered to the principle of being “stringently objective and neutral”, and while ensuring a continuation in the style and quality of reporting, the breadth of reporting and the depth of the content have expanded with the more vivid pattern of presentation, so that the China SME Finance Report 2013 could become more polished in terms of content, structure, information collection and form of expression. The content and structure of the report are arranged according to detailed sub-sections on the state of SME financial services in the four sectors of banking financial institutions, other quasi-financial institutions, financial markets and private financing.