As a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), Pan Baochun has paid close attention to two key topics – the development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and the improvement of the rural consumer market.

Pan, also chairman of Hefei Royalstar Electronics Group and vice-chairman of Anhui Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce, visited more than 40 MSMEs in the provinces of Guangdong, Zhejiang and Anhui and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and surveyed rural markets in over 20 townships in the past year, to get first-hand information on these two topics.

"During his survey, Pan found that a construction materials store in a town in Anhui's Chuzhou was able to achieve annual revenues of 20 million yuan ($3.17 million) from its tile business. He said this figure reveals the huge potential of rural consumer markets and also means enterprises should proactively respond to market trends and seize opportunity in the countryside.

"The brands and quality of products in the rural markets vary considerably, and this proves again that it's necessary and urgent to improve the rural market, an idea I also suggested last year,” Pan said.

As a deputy to the top legislature for four years, Pan has put forward four motions and 11 suggestions focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives, MSMEs and rural vitalization, all of which are among national policy priorities.

For the NPC session this year, Pan said he is particularly concerned about issues of business integrity and enterprise compliance and plans to offer suggestions on promoting the healthy development of MSMEs in line with efforts to build the rule of law in China to protect MSMEs from credit infringement.