Dalian getting a boost from growth in the finance business

Annual growth of the amount of loans in the city of Dalian over the past four years has reached 122.8 billion yuan ($19.7 billion), an annual increase of 22.2 percent on average, so the city's finance business is providing a considerable amount of support for its transformation.

The city's total financial assets are expected to amount to 1,600 billion yuan, with deposits of 1,049.8 billion yuan and loans of 909.6 billion. The finance industry is expected to pay nearly 6 billion yuan in taxes in 2012, 10 percent of that from local taxation. The added value for 2012 is expected to be 36.2 billion yuan, or 3.3 times the 2007 figure. The growth rate of added-value financial deals has put it near the top in the country for three consecutive years.

The city's financial service system has improved so it has been able to introduce 315 financial institutions over the past five years and has become more international, with 10 international financial institutions, such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, and wooribank moving in. It now has 55 foreign-funded financial and financial-service institutions, putting it in 5th place among China's cities.

The futures industry is also playing a more prominent role and it has increased the types of futures trading, while the Dalian Commodities Exchange (DCE) has undergone a transformation from an agricultural product market to a more comprehensive market. There were 630 million futures deals worth 3260 billion yuan. This accounted for 47.88 percent of the total in commodity markets and DCE’s trade volume ranks among the top 10 in commodities markets around the globe, and third in Asia.

Dalian also saw capital market improvements over the past five years, with as many as 19 of its companies going public on China’s small to mid-sized enterprise boards and in the growth enterprise market, raising 127.6 billion yuan in funds in total, on capital markets.

Its equity investment business had to start from scratch and the city currently has 39 equity investment institutions handling 27.7 billion yuan in investments.

So, the city's financial services environment keeps improving and, in that five-year period, it removed more than 20 billion yuan worth of non-performing loans. The bank non-performing loans decreased 14 billion yuan, and the rate of non-performing loans was only 0.94 percent, a decrease of 6.38 percent from a year earlier.

Dalian has won recognition as "China Top 10 Financial Environment City", "China's Financial City with Largest Investment Potential", and "China's Most Internationalized Financial City" for three years.