Guangdong plans to launch financing platform for smaller companies

A financing platform for small - and medium-sized enterprises in Guangdong province will be officially launched in September, aimed at efficiently providing fundraising solutions for SMEs, a senior official with the local financial supervisory authority said.

"The platform will become an open financing ecological system, based on integration of big data of company credits and financing solutions," said He Xiaojun, director of the Guangdong Local Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau.

He gave the remarks after Guangdong announced measures to support the development of local SMEs through financing on Wednesday.

"The core work of the announcement of measures is to establish a credit evaluation system for SMEs and to tackle the problem of information asymmetry of SMEs in financing," He said.

The credit evaluation of SMEs will be based on the local government's database of companies, using advanced financial technology to provide services for qualified SMEs, the official added.

"As Guangdong is a power house in manufacturing, foreign trade and scientific innovation, we have made tailored financing measures for companies, which are specialized in manufacturing, foreign trade and innovation," said He.

Citing financing measures for foreign trade companies, He said SMEs would no longer wait for too many credit approvals in their fundraising.

"Foreign trade companies are enabled to submit their financing requests after they obtain certification of deals. Financial organizations will easily make confirmation of their credits with platform data which are from (the) local customs and foreign currency administration authority," said He.

According to He, up to 53 percent of trade in Guangdong and the neighboring special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao are conducted by SMEs.

"The financing platform will also integrate data of foreign trade companies with authorities from Hong Kong and Macao," the director said.

Guangdong has around 11 million SMEs and accounts for nearly one fourth of the nation's foreign trade, according to He.

"The establishment of such a financing platform would help greatly increase fundraising efficiency for thousands of foreign trade-oriented companies in the Pearl River Delta," said He.

The financing platform is in pilot operation, with the first deal of loans for a foreign trade company completed successfully.

"A growing number of companies would benefit from the use of the platform apps after it is officially launched in September," said He.

Yang Shan, who runs an ultrasonic cleaning equipment company in Shenzhen, said the company has a great demand for financing after its sales expansion in the past few years.

"We have made more investments in research and development of high-tech ultrasonic cleaning facilities," said Yang.