The Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology and the Provincial Department of Finance recently jointly issued the Implementation Plan for Empowerment Vouchers for Enterprises on the "Specialized, Refined, Distinctive and Innovative" Board of Sichuan Province, officially launching the empowerment vouchers for enterprises on the "Specialized, Refined, Distinctive and Innovative" Board of Sichuan Province.
This means that small and medium-sized enterprises in Sichuan that are specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative now have another tangible policy boost — using government subsidies to leverage professional services and accelerate growth through the power of the capital market.
The policy aims to support specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in utilizing the platform resources of Sichuan's regional equity market and the professional services of service institutions through a combination of government subsidies and market-oriented services, thereby enhancing their competitiveness.
The empowerment vouchers are issued in electronic form directly to board enterprises and are universally applicable and redeemable across the province. Eligible applicants are enterprises that have already entered the "Specialized, Refined, Distinctive and Innovative" Board of Sichuan's regional equity market, as well as enterprises that have passed the "Specialized, Refined, Distinctive and Innovative" Board review and obtained the Board Entry Review Result Notification.
In terms of support amounts, each enterprise may apply once per year. Newly entered enterprises in the current year have an annual application limit of 80,000 yuan, while enterprises that entered the board in previous years have an annual application limit of 50,000 yuan. The empowerment vouchers are subject to a total annual quota control, allocated on a first-come, first-served basis until exhausted. They are valid for the current year (calendar year) after issuance and automatically expire upon expiration. They are limited to board enterprises for application and use, and may not be transferred, gifted, bought or sold, pledged, or lent.
In terms of service scenarios, the empowerment vouchers support offsetting fees for four major categories of services: first, board entry services, including enterprise board entry service fees and equity (share) registration and custody service fees; second, standardized governance services, covering enterprise standardized governance training, policy consultation and other service fees; third, financing consultation services; fourth, listing cultivation services, including shareholding system reform, equity incentives, listing diagnosis and valuation, listing path planning, green channel for New Third Board listing, listing-themed training and other service fees, comprehensively covering the entire chain of capital market cultivation from board entry and standardization to listing sprint.
Board enterprises and service institutions log into the "Sichuan Enterprise Public Service Cloud Platform" — "Empowerment Voucher Service Zone" to complete registration. After review and confirmation, enterprises can submit materials online to apply for empowerment vouchers. After receiving services from registered institutions, enterprises use empowerment vouchers to offset service fees as agreed. After service institutions complete their services, they submit redemption applications, and fund redemption is completed after review by the Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology.
Tianfu Equity Exchange Center, as the entity responsible for the construction and operation of the "Specialized, Refined, Distinctive and Innovative" Board, will make every effort to provide enterprise board entry cultivation and supporting services for the empowerment voucher policy, including conducting policy briefings and interpretations for board enterprises to guide them in fully understanding and making good use of the empowerment voucher policy benefits; continuously enriching board service offerings and gathering capital market service resources to provide enterprises with comprehensive financial services such as standardized governance, financing matchmaking, and listing cultivation; and relying on the board's tiered cultivation system to promote deep integration of the empowerment voucher policy with board cultivation, listing incubation, and investment and financing matchmaking, helping more Sichuan specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative enterprises standardize and improve quality, and leverage capital to grow bigger and stronger.