AN international sourcing platform for semiconductors and other electronic components, officially launched in Shenzhen earlier this February, has seen active business activities.

As of Sept. 15, the accumulative transaction at the Electronic Components and Integrated Circuit International Trading Center had amounted to 30.57 billion yuan (US$4.19 billion), increasing sharply compared with the 3.10 billion yuan reported at the end of January, when the center just started its trial operation.

Chen Wenhai, the trading center’s general manager, said that four companies have already registered and seven supply chain service providers and distributors have expressed intentions to join the center.

The trading center also conducts new types of international offshore trading for electronic components and offers inventory pledge financing services. Through cooperation with industry-leading manufacturers and financial institutions, the trading center helps revitalize companies’ inventory assets and improve operational efficiency, Chen said during the 2023 China (Shenzhen) Integrated Circuit Summit, which was held in Bao’an from Thursday to Friday.

The trading center currently has adopted three main modes: user group procurement, aggregated bidding and self-matching. The trading center aims to “gather domestic and foreign resources and create a trillion-level international trading platform,” Shenzhen-based Securities Times quoted Chen as saying.

With an initial capital of 2.13 billion yuan, the trading center is initiated by telecom equipment maker China Electronics Corp. and local government fund Shenzhen Investment Holdings, and financed by 13 companies, including State-owned and private firms.

The launch of the center is part of the country’s broader push to ensure the stability and security of industrial and supply chains, and is expected to engage various companies involved in the semiconductor and electronics industries around the world, including manufacturers and distributors.

The new generation of information technology based on electronic components and integrated circuits has played an important role in stabilizing economic growth and establishing a modern industrial system, Wang Jiangping, vice-minister of industry and information technology, said at the launch ceremony in February.

Wang added that by grouping companies engaged in the upstream and downstream of the electronic component industrial chain, the trading center is expected to boost the development of China’s electronic information industry.

China’s electronic components and integrated circuit industry has seen rapid growth in recent years, with the industry’s revenue surging from 190 billion yuan in 2012 to more than 1 trillion yuan in 2022. Data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association showed that sales of China’s integrated circuit industry reached 1.2 trillion yuan in 2022, an increase of 14.8% year on year.

Over the past three years, Shenzhen’s municipal and district governments have continuously rolled out policies for the integrated circuit (IC) industry, leading to the rapid growth of local IC firms.

In 2022, the city added a total of 28 “little giant” IC companies — innovative small and medium-sized enterprises that specialize in niche sectors, command a high market share, boast strong innovative capacity and core technologies. In the first half of this year, the number of new “little giant” IC firms jumped to 27.

Shenzhen has also been leveraging its advantages as the country’s stronghold in the electronics and information technology industries to build the city into an important national distribution, application and design center for semiconductor and IC products.

According to official data, the import value of integrated circuits in Shenzhen in 2022 reached 701.26 billion yuan, accounting for about 25% of the national total, and the export value reached 136.06 billion yuan, accounting for 13.2% of the country’s total. (Yang Yunfei)