A view of a closed ice cream store in Joy City shopping mall in Beijing on Thursday Photo: Zhang Hongpei/GT

Following a flurry of steps announced by the Chinese government to help micro and small-sized enterprises withstand blows caused by the coronavirus, it is equally important to make sure the favorable policies will be channeled to the affected businesses, analysts said.

"Inclusive monetary policy tools will be used to support resumption of micro-, small as well as medium-sized enterprises according to the principles of market rules and laws," Liu Guoqiang, vice governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), told a press conference on Thursday.

The PBC, the country's central bank, said Wednesday it was releasing 500 billion yuan ($71.3 billion) to banks for loans to small and medium-sized enterprises, on top of 300 billion yuan announced earlier this month.

From March 1 to the end of May, individual businesses and small-scale taxpayers in Central China's Hubei Province, which is the epicenter of the deadly virus outbreak, will be exempted from paying value-added tax, while the tax rate for the same businesses in other provinces will be lowered from 3 percent to 1 percent, according to Tang Jun, deputy head of the State Administration for Market Regulation.

Lowering operational costs and generating revenues at the earliest date has become the key to survival for small businesses now. A survey by the National Institution for Finance and Development showed Thursday that 85 percent of smaller firms said their cash flow can last only three months.

Wang Jinghua, a businessman who owns a maternal products factory in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, told the Global Times Thursday that only 20 percent of front-line workers have returned to their posts to date. He estimated losses in February could reach 5 million yuan.

 "It might take some time for local governments to make specific policies to help businesses like us, so now all we can do is to rescue ourselves," Wang said.

As most of the firm's products are exported-oriented, Wang said he has been in discussions with foreign clients to solve some hard issues. "Some of my clients are even willing to pay some deposits in advance."

The owner of barbershop in Beijing told the Global Times Thursday that his business has reopened for a week but there are few customers. "Rent, staff salaries, electricity and other bills… amount to 2,000 yuan per day, which is simply unbearable," said the owner, who asked to remain anonymous.

The government's favorable policies are important in battling the epidemic, but it is more crucial to make sure those policies can trickle down to businesses to help them recover, Zhou Dewen, deputy director of the China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, told the Global Times.

"In terms of businesses, as the epidemic has put a brake on normal operation, it is also a good time for them to evaluate the demand end and reform their supply accordingly to become more flexible in keeping to market demand," Zhou noted.

"In the long term, a support fund or rescue plan targeting smaller businesses should be phased in a genuine manner to prevent widespread bankruptcies," he added.

Micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises have played a major role in China's economic development. There were 18.07 million such entities by the end of 2018, making up 99.8 percent of all legal entities, according to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics. Those enterprises employed around 233 million people, accounting for 79.4 percent of all enterprise employees nationwide.

So far, business resumption in those firms has steadily climbed, reaching over 30 percent, Zhang Kejian, deputy minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said Thursday.