Luo Songsong, Liu Minxia
songsongluo@126.com
SHENZHEN companies and their partners have gained the green light to set up six exchanges to trade commodities and financial products in the city, including three to be based in the Qianhai economic zone, according to a meeting yesterday.
The platforms, which will trade precious and non-ferrous metals, agricultural products and minerals, among other commodities, will be funded by large companies, such as Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China and CMB International. Each platform must have a registered capital of at least 100 million yuan (US$16.2 million).
So far, Shenzhen has approved the establishments of 30 exchanges, with 14 already in operation. The Qianhai Equity Exchange, launched in May last year, now hosts over 3,600 enterprises, making it the largest equity exchange in China in terms of number of companies.
To support the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), banks, insurance companies and credit firms showcased their products at a small-scale exhibition on the sideline of the meeting.
“Exhibitors explained to me a number of innovative financial products that have been put onto the market,” Mayor Xu Qin told the meeting. “The city will lend support to SMEs in many ways.”
Xu said Qianhai offers preferential policies to aid the growth of SMEs, but many were not previously aware of that. Shenzhen branches of the central bank, the national banking regulator, the securities regulator, and the insurance regulator are allowing Qianhai to offer nearly 30 more preferential policies, according to Xu. The financial regulators explained in detail what they have to offer to SMEs in Qianhai at the meeting yesterday.
Eighty-three Qianhai companies have applied to borrow 44 billion yuan in cross-border yuan loans from financial institutions — 29 Hong Kong banks among them — since the program was launched in December 2012, according to Zhang Jianjun, head of the Shenzhen branch of the People’s Bank of China. The cross-border yuan loans applied for by Qianhai firms are expected to exceed 50 billion yuan by the end of this year, he said.
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