Guangdong's Party Secretary Wang Yang (third right), and Guangdong's Governor Huang Huahua (fourth right), visiting the Guangdong High-Tech Service Zone for Financial Institutions on May 19, 2011.

The Guangdong High-Tech Service Zone for Financial Institutions is a major national development project that has caught the attention of senior officials and has benefited tremendously from government support.

It was founded in July 2007, and has been visited by such high-level officials as Vice-premier Zhang Dejiang and Guangdong's Party Secretary Wang Yang - both of whom are members of the CPC central committee's political bureau - and Guangdong's Governor Huang Huahua and Vice-governor Song Hai.

Provincial government support has included getting the zone added to the list of key national projects and preferential finance and tax policies.

Local government support has included getting the Foshan municipal government and Nanhai district government to allocate 18 square kilometers of valuable land - worth as much as 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) - for zone development at a time when the financial sector was not an important contributor to local taxes. It also got 6 billion yuan in infrastructure development funds.

To make it getting started easier, the district government also set aside at least 100 million yuan annually for a special fund to attract investors.

Those who benefit include:

financial institutions in banking, insurance, securities, and others with headquarters in the zone, who can qualify for as much as 25 million yuan;

back-office HQ of financial institutions and service outsourcing enterprises, who can qualify for as much as 10 million yuan;

corporations, who can get income tax and sales taxes exemptions for outsourcing services;

financial institutions and service outsourcing enterprises, who can get a subsidy of 1,000 yuan per sq m for the construction or purchase of office space, or a subsidy equal to 30 percent of the rent, if they rent for the first three years;

small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in financing and service outsourcing, who can apply for rent subsidies equal to 50 percent of the rent for the first three years, for office space of no more than 500 sq m, if they start a business in the zone's financial innovation and development base.

Other favorable policies include rebates in personal income tax for senior executives and major staff, and housing subsidies of up to 20,000 yuan if they buy a house, as well as subsidies for training initiatives.

(China Daily 10/21/2011 page12)