Wenzhou continues to lead financial reform with pilot project

As an incubation project to attract more overseas Wenzhou businessmen back to Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, the Wenzhou Chance-Way Business School will start recruitment in June to target entrepreneurs in the city.

The education institution was founded by 50 local businessmen using their resources and funding to gather young entrepreneurs for professional academic and practical training courses.

"The college applies new education methods instead of the traditional lecture mode, allowing students to share resources and carry out innovative research," said Gao Mingjia, general manager of Wenzhou Chance-Way Education Center.

The center is keen to offer training and consulting activities, financial support and assistance for local traditional companies and innovative enterprises to learn from each other.

"The courses cover five main areas, including enterprise training, configuration of industrial chains and business strategy support, which are designed for local companies," said Gao.

Previously a hotbed of private enterprise, Wenzhou was selected as a pilot project for financial reform in March 2012, after a financial crisis from widespread loan defaults by hard-pressed factory owners and investors.

The calamity prompted the government to channel private sector funds from underground banks - where they were earning high returns - to a properly regulated and supervised lending mechanism.

Since then, the government has established Wenzhou's financing center and other facilities to regulate the system in the city for local companies.

"After years of reform, we now face challenges in transforming and restructuring local enterprises, which need the guidance of professional training and innovative courses to move forward," said Zhou Dewen, chairman of Wenzhou Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.

Wenzhou Merchant's Development and Research Center was also launched to coordinate research from local institutions with new business strategies.

yuran@chinadaily.com.cn