Small and medium-sized companies specializing in niche industries with cutting-edge technologies accounted for 59 percent of last year's initial public offerings in the A-share market, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The progress comes as China is stepping up its push to nurture innovative tech SMEs with funding.

Xu Xiaolan, vice-minister of industry and information technology, said on Tuesday specialized and sophisticated SMEs with novel products have accounted for 27 percent of A-share listed companies by the end of last year.

Moreover, such SMEs accounted for 72 percent of newly listed companies on the science and technology innovation board in 2022.

Xu said the authorities will increase their efforts to create a favorable environment for the development of SMEs, expedite their IPOs and encourage more social capital to invest in them at the early stage.

Xu said the goal is to cultivate more than 80,000 such SMEs and about 10,000 "little giant" firms by the end of this year.

"Little giants" refer to SMEs that typically specialize in niche sectors, command high market shares and boast strong innovative capacity.

On Monday, the ministry also kicked off the selection of the fifth batch of "little giants". So far, China has cultivated 8,997 such fims.