A key part of the ZGC Forum, the Zhongguancun International Frontier Technology Innovation Competition promotes tech startups' growth. WANG HAIXIN/FOR CHINA DAILY

The 2021 Zhongguancun Forum has helped foster the innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises and offered startups a platform to showcase their latest technologies.

One of the 25 parallel events, the Multilevel Capital Market Facilitating High-quality Economic Development Forum invited a host of regulators, academics and representatives from financial institutions to share their insights into the development of SMEs.

Li Yongchun, deputy general manager of the Beijing Stock Exchange, said that high-quality economic growth cannot be divorced from innovative SMEs, while their development requires diverse paths of direct financing.

The Beijing Stock Exchange, which was set up on Sept 3, will improve the services that capital markets offer to SMEs, Li said.

It will assist resource integration and supervision for SMEs, Li said. He added that SMEs will gain more attention and support through the bourse and thereby enhance their vitality.

Focusing on the Beijing Stock Exchange, Zhongguancun Development Group is poised to hold training sessions for SMEs to help them participate in the capital market, said Xuan Hong, general manager of the company.

Li Yan, deputy director of the Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration, said the city is striving to construct a major base for SMEs as part of its efforts to build a modern financial system unique to capital cities.

"We plan to cultivate a throng of innovation-driven SMEs and provide them with financial services through their life cycles," Li said.

The city will also advance the building of the multilevel capital market, attracting more investors and making Beijing's capital market more vibrant, according to Li.

In addition to forums for SMEs, the Zhongguancun International Frontier Technology Innovation Competition, as a key part of the event, is committed to finding startup teams with cutting-edge projects.

Prime competitors can receive strong support such as cash awards, preferential loans and entrepreneurial coaching to aid the transformation of their technologies, the organizing committee said.

Since its inception in 2017, the competition has offered 156 startup teams financial aid totaling 400 million yuan ($62.14 million).

Thirty-nine of them have grown into unicorn businesses－startups valued at more than $1 billion. Seven of the startups have been listed on domestic or foreign stock exchanges, according to the organizing committee.

The competition is becoming known as a cradle for high-tech unicorn companies, an organizer said, adding that it has made remarkable progress in promoting startups' growth.

The theme of this year's competition was boosting the digital economy with frontier technologies.

It highlighted 12 fields such as artificial intelligence, health sciences and integrated circuits, bringing together more than 1,000 projects around the world.