On October 22，2020, the 2020 G20 Entrepreneurship Roundtable was held by the Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies, Tsinghua University in Beijing. Focusing on the theme of “Policies and Actions to Promote Entrepreneurship in the Post-pandemic era”, the roundtable is held with a combination of online and offline communication. It is a significant discussion on entrepreneurship policy among the G20, and the fourth roundtable held by the Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies, Tsinghua University for the fourth consecutive year.

HAO Bin, Director-General Hao Bin of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China, addressed the meeting and GAO Jian, director at the Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies, Tsinghua University and Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, gave the keynote speech.

In his speech, HAO Bin pointed out that in recent years, all the G20 presidents have attached great importance to entrepreneurship. In the declaration of the G20 virtual Employment Ministers Meeting this year hosted by Saudi Arabia, the implementation of the G20 Entrepreneurship Action Plan was emphasized on, which was highly valued in improving youth employment and fostering entrepreneurship skills training. HAO also suggested that in order to cope with the challenges brought by the epidemic, we should endeavor to turn crises into opportunities, using the Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies as a platform to communicate so as to promote entrepreneurship and employment. Pointing out that the Chinese government attaches great importance to entrepreneurship, HAO introduced an important speech made by Premier LI Keqiang during this year's National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Week, which aims at encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation. In the future, the Chinese government will further promote entrepreneurship by organizing systematic training, making supportive policies, and support specific population groups to start businesses and be employed through multiple channels.

GAO Jian summarized G20 members’ policies to support small enterprises and start-ups during the pandemic period, and divided them into three types: bail-out policies, transformation policies and innovation policies. Generally speaking, the member countries took mostly bail-out policies, focusing on financing support, stable employment and business burden reduction, whereas distinct differences exist in the transformation and innovation ones. According to him, China adopted a balanced entrepreneurship policy to support small and medium-sized enterprises and star-ups, fulfilling the needs of bail-out, transformation as well as innovation. GAO suggested that G20 members should take the post-pandemic balance and normalization into consideration.

GAO also revealed the G20 entrepreneurship dashboard, which consists of the G20 Entrepreneurship Action Plan progress assessment and the G20 member entrepreneurship index.

The roundtable focused on two major topics. The first topic was entrepreneurship-driven employment and job stability support for enterprises. QIAN Xiaoyan, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security hosted the section. David Aikman, Chief Representative of Greater China Region of the World Economic Forum, MO Rong, CPPCC member and Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security, and CHAI Haishan, Inspector of the Department of Employment Promotion of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, respectively, spoke on the global macro-economy’s need for major restructuring, the entrepreneurial financial services in the digital context during the pandemic, and an upgraded version of employment driven by entrepreneurship.

Hosted by GAO Jian, the second topic is all-round support for entrepreneurship development. Victor van Vuuren, Director of the Enterprises Department of ILO, Slavica Singer, UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship Education, and Macro Bianchini, economist at the OECD SME, delivered keynote addresses on how to provide support for the sustainable development of small and start-up enterprises, realizing equal opportunities in entrepreneurship through entrepreneurship training and the significance of and suggestions for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the post-epidemic era, respectively.

More than 20 countries participated in the roundtable, 16 of which were G20 members. Experts from ILO, the World Economic Forum, the OECD, UNESCO and other international organizations, officials from the Chinese government, heads of relevant social organizations, scholars from research institutes in the field of entrepreneurship and employment as well as heads of related enterprises in the fields of entrepreneurship, delivered speeches and discussed on topics including youth entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship training, entrepreneurship ecology, flexible employment, financial technology and entrepreneurship support policies during the epidemic.

Established by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of PRC and Tsinghua University jointly, the Entrepreneurship Research Center on G20 Economies aims to strengthen the exchange of information between G20 members by tight cooperation with international organizations including the ILO and OECD, and become a platform for expanding best practice sharing and supporting entrepreneurial action plans.