Lying at the bank of Pearl River and on the coast of the South China Sea, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (hereinafter referred to as the Greater Bay Area) is striding forward on its road to become an international first-class bay area, a world-class urban agglomeration, and an international innovation center.
To better support the development of the Greater Bay Area, in 2022, China Development Bank (CDB) focused on fields such as infrastructure connectivity, scientific and technological innovation, and development of emerging industries of strategic importance. It took the initiative to make and carry out plans, took precise actions with great efforts, and made new contributions out as a development finance institution (DFI).
CDB helped to promoted unblocked transportation and invigorate the area
February just signals the start of a new spring. Amid the sounds of piling and roaring, the construction site of Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway is at full blast. Though it is right the time of the Spring Festival, the constructors are here and there, busy as bees. They give up the holidays they should have been enjoying and stay fast on the frontline at the construction site. They work hard to catch up with the schedule, trying their best to meet the deadlines. They make sacrifice on their benefits for the greater good. With their devotion and diligence, they are here to make it certain that Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway can open to traffic smoothly, so as to solve the transportation difficulties for people in the west of Guangdong Province.
West Guangdong is an industrial base of great importance to the province. With the economic growth, more and more premium companies settled here, which brought more talents… However, the outdated local transportation now becomes a big bottleneck for this area, just like a fishbone getting stuck in the throat. Traffic jam was a routine in case of festivals and holidays. Thanks to the project of Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway, the traffic congestion will be greatly relieved, and a dream life of reaching everywhere in the Greater Bay Area within one hour will also be realized soon.
Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway is the coastal passage of the high speed railway network which consists of “8 North-South Corridors and 8 East-West Corridors”. It is most complicated railway project featuring the highest construction standard, the longest route, and the biggest investment in the history of Guangdong. The project connects the Greater Bay Area, Hainan Free Trade Port and Beibu Gulf urban cluster. It starts from Guangzhou Railway Station, passes cities including Foshan, Zhaoqing, Yunfu, Yangjiang, Maoming and Zhanjiang, and finally arrives at Zhanjiang North Railway Station. The overall length of the main track lasts 401 kilometers and the designed train speed is 350 km/hour.
Unblocked traffic enables convenient life, which in turn boosts prosperity. As the mandated lead arranger of the syndicated loan for Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway, CDB Guangdong Branch focused on its mandate and made the utmost of its advantages in infrastructure-oriented financing and investment by granting a loan of 750 million yuan to support the project construction.
The construction of the project was commenced in October 2020 and it is expected to complete and open to traffic in 2025. At that time, the travel time between the central urban areas of Guangzhou and Zhanjiang will be shortened from over 3 hours to less than 1.5 hours, which will bring great convenience to the traveling of people in west Guangdong. The project will play a vital role in enhancing the connection between the Greater Bay Area and the surrounding cities and areas in west Guangdong. While elevating the economic status of the west area, it will help build a coastal high speed railway network, improve traffic distribution network to airports, and upgrade the transportation layout, boosting high-quality economic and social development.
CDB supported building the platform for innovation research
Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone, which lies in southern Futian District of Shenzhen City on the boundary of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a special science and technology innovation platform explicitly proposed in the Outline of the Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Unlike traditional industrial parks, this Zone was positioned as a forerunner infrastructure of the national comprehensive science center which connects and integrates the resources from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. It is the frontline to explore integrated science and technology development. CDB Shenzhen Branch, as the first lending bank supporting the construction of the Zone, fully supported the construction of infrastructure projects in the zone.
Among the projects in the Zone, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Open Innovation Center is one of the first batch of demonstration projects. Positioned as a life science research platform, the Center aims to build a comprehensive national scientific center and commits itself to establishing a science and technology innovation complex integrating functions of scientific research, laboratory, and supporting services. A loan with a line of credit of 1.5 billion yuan was exclusively extended by CDB to the project, in which CDB played a positive role in leading social capital to invest in projects for sci-tech self-reliance and self-strengthening at higher levels in the Greater Bay Area.
The Center is located in the west of the Zone. It covers a floor area of more than 200,000 square meters with a building height of 120 meters. The construction of the project mainly involves high-standard research & development laboratories and pilot test bases for enterprises possessing key generic technologies, leading-edge technologies and innovative technologies of breakthrough significance such as integrated circuits, life health and bio-pharm, artificial intelligence, and new materials.
Upon completion, the Center will provide laboratories and scientific research space covering over 150,000 square meters. It will focus on introducing industries involving hard & core technologies and attract international advanced life science projects, international professionals and core intellectual property rights or patents, which will help Shenzhen strengthen its advantages in deep industry-university-research integrated innovation and boost highly efficient, convenient flow of personnel, funds, technologies and information.
CDB provided efficient financial services to improve quality and efficiency
In the meantime, CDB relentlessly innovated products and services, brought its advantages in comprehensive financing services, actively expanded its business coverage in the Greater Bay Area, and led more financial resources to the key fields of great significance to economic and social development of the Greater Bay Area through its overseas branches, CDB Capital, CDB Securities, CDB Financial Leasing and other subsidiaries.
In July 2022, CDB Hong Kong Branch successfully issued 2.5 billion yuan of 5-year-term offshore RMB-denominated bonds and 3.5 billion yuan of 2-year-term HKD-denominated bonds in the overseas market. The funds raised in this offering was mainly used to promote the construction of the Greater Bay Area, particularly the loans for local projects in the areas such as infrastructure, people’s livelihood, and sci-tech innovation in Hong Kong.
As a key part of intelligent and networked automotive development, autonomous driving is a new “racing track” for both the technological circles and the industrial circles. In 2022, CDB Capital exerted itself to accelerate its business presence. It made investments totaling USD170 million to WeRide, a leading global company that develops Level 4 autonomous driving technologies, through National Manufacturing Fund and China-Arab Investment Fund, with a view to boosting the innovation and development of intelligent automotive and supporting the transformation and upgrading of China’s auto industry.
Enterprises are cells of economic operation and the mainstay of sci-tech innovation. They are also the driving force of economic growth. In 2022, CDB Securities focused on coordinated regional development, capitalized on its advantages in bonds, and supported Leaguer Group Co., Ltd. to issue 700 million yuan of corporate bonds, which facilitated the company to accelerate sci-tech innovation in its main operations. In this way, it supported technology enterprises in the Greater Bay Area to incubate and commercialize their scientific and research findings.
CDB Financial Leasing, playing its featured advantages in leasing, provided nearly 5 billion yuan of new lease financing to industries in the real economy such as photovoltaic power generation equipment, internet data center (IDC), ship, engineering machinery in the Greater Bay Area, and saw the first urban infrastructure lease-after-sale project in Shenzhen. The project met clients’ diversified financing needs with a portfolio of “credit loan + leasing”, which added impetus to the development of “cells”.
Next, CDB will continue to thoroughly implement the decisions and instructions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and further its cooperation in financing and consultancy services with the ministries and commissions, the Guangdong Provincial Government and the Government of Hong Kong SAR. It will exert more efforts to support the infrastructure construction, the sci-tech innovation as well as the emerging industries of strategic importance in the Greater Bay Area by constantly improving the quality and effects of its service as a DFI.
2015 All rights reserved