TIANJIN, China, June 24, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lower costs, better international integration and wider investment opportunities - the draw that's wooing new firms to the Binhai Central Business District.
This innovative platform means the financial services sector at one of China's next-generation Free Trade Zones is seeing soaring activity.
"The CBD has an unprecedented historic responsibility to provide a platform enabling more financial innovation," said Li Cailiang, Binhai CBD's Assistant to Chairman.
"Why are China's FTZs so eye-catching? Because their key mission is to facilitate investment and trading and further internationalize financial services. And these three core areas have one theme in common, financial innovation."
Binhai CBD is easing restrictions on foreign investors in areas such as banking, leasing, consumer finance, asset management and insurance. It is promoting the two-way cross-border flow of the Chinese Yuan, encouraging foreign investors to set up RMB-denominated private equity and venture capital funds. It is also experimenting with free currency convertibility, allowing FTZ-residents to invest abroad and enabling leasing companies to collect revenue in foreign currency.
As a result, the financial services sector accounted for 6.4 billion Yuan of industrial output in 2014, with year-on-year growth of 32%, and generated 85% of the CBD's total industrial output. More than 600 of the CBD's modern services sector tenants are in the financial services sector. New arrivals in 2015 include sector leaders such as KinCheng Bank of Tianjin (KCB), China Citic Financial Leasing and MasterLink Securities.
"Tianjin FTZ will continue to pilot anything that is required by companies, approved by the market, and in accordance with the developmental trend of international finance," added Li.
To underline this ambition, in June Binhai CBD hosted a Financial Forum on Factoring Business Promotion in Yujiapu, covering topics such as refinancing, asset transfer, risk management and regulation.
The Binhai CBD is at the heart of Tianjin's FTZ, designed to attract capital and talent, and stimulate economic activity and growth through the Tianjin-Hebei-Beijing area and beyond.
It is also at a strategic point in the "One Road, One Belt" initiative, sitting at the juncture of the Silk Road corridor and the Maritime Belt.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Yang Lipeng, Binhai CBD News Office 86-22-65817862 Lan Shen, Z. H. STUDIO 86-21-22311399/98
