——Special Summit Conference of China Financial Leasing 30 Forum was Successfully Held
On April 9, 2015, the Special Summit Conference of China Financial Leasing 30 Forum, sponsored by China Financial Leasing 30 Forum and Guangzhou Yuexiu Group and organized by Guangzhou Yuexiu Financial Holdings Group and Yuexiu Financial Leasing, was successfully held at Guangzhou International Finance Center. With the theme of “speeding up financial leasing development in Guangzhou by leveraging the FTZ reform and innovation advantages”, this forum attracted more than 100 experts and leasing company representatives from the government, regulatory authorities and the leasing industry, who had an in-depth discussion on the development of the leasing industry in Guangzhou, and explored the new opportunities brought by the Free Trade Zone to the financial leasing industry. The forum was attended by municipal leaders including Ding Hongdu, member of the Municipal Standing Committee and secretary of Nansha District Committee, and Luo Weifeng, deputy mayor; main leaders of leading enterprises in the Chinese leasing industry, including ICBC Leasing, HNA Capital, Haitong UniTrust Leasing and Yuexiu Financial Leasing, delivered keynote speeches at the forum.
The Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government pay high attention to the financial leasing industry, so as to speed up the development of the leasing industry in Nansha Free Trade Zone, and actively build Guangzhou into the third pole of the Chinese financial leasing industry.
Before the start of the forum, Ren Xuefeng, member of the Guangdong Provincial Standing Committee, and secretary of Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, met with the main guests attending the Special Summit Conference of China Financial Leasing 30 Forum. Secretary Ren described the future development strategy for Guangzhou, and pointed out that Guangzhou is being built into a National Central City by implementing the strategies of “two-wheel drive —— advanced manufacturing industry and modern service industry”, and “double wing —— airport and seaport”, and building a triple-zone structure consisting of the Nansha New Area of Free Trade Zone, Guangzhou Development Zone and Zengcheng National Development Zone. These strategies are consistent with the national “One Belt and One Road” and FTZ strategies, and will definitely lay a good foundation for the economic development of Guangzhou, and provide extensive room for the development of the financial leasing industry in Guangzhou. He welcomed the leading financial leasing enterprises to invest in Guangzhou, especially in Nansha FTZ. He also pointed out that the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government are paying high attention to the cultivation and development of the financial leasing industry, and are trying to build several financial leasing industrial clusters with a scale of one hundred billion Yuan in the next two or three years, and make Guangzhou the “Third Pole of Financial Leasing in China” after Tianjin and Shanghai.
Ding Hongdu, member of Guangzhou Municipal Standing Committee, and director of the Management Committee of Nansha Development Zone, said in his speech that during the 12 years from 2002 (when the large-scale development of Nansha began) to 2014, Nansha’s GDP increased by 17 times from 6 billion Yuan to more than 100 billion Yuan; total industrial output value increased by 25 times to 280 billion Yuan; and fixed assets investments and public financial budget revenue increased by 29 and 30 times respectively. Upon approval of Nansha New Area of the Guangdong Pilot FTZ, Nansha has entered a new era of “Double-zone” (National New Area and Pilot FTZ) development, and is standing at the forefront of reform and opening-up. Nansha already has strong advantages and good prospects. In the next step, it will leverage its policy-related advantages as the first pilot zone in the country for unified management system reform of the domestic and foreign funded financial leasing industry, actively establish the “Nansha Standard” for the national financial leasing industry, and form financial leasing industrial clusters with a scale of one hundred billion Yuan.
Xiao Zhenyu, director of Guangzhou Municipal Commission of Commerce, said in his speech that the Municipal Commission of Commerce will enhance its knowledge on the financial leasing industry, so as to create a good business environment for the development of the financial leasing industry, and provide first-class service for the development of leasing enterprises in Guangzhou and Nansha.
All speakers at the forum were optimistic about the development prospects of the financial leasing industry in the FTZ, which will lead to the start of a new era of innovative development of the financial leasing industry in China.
The 6 speakers at the forum delivered incisive, original and innovative keynote speeches on the policy environment, investment environment and development visions of the financial leasing industry in the FTZ.
Li Siming, CEO of Haitong UniTrust International Leasing Corporation, delivered a keynote speech entitled “Policy Environment Changes and Impact on the Chinese Financial Leasing Industry”. He explained the current development status of the financial leasing industry, and pointed out that the total scale of the industry was approximately 2300 billion Yuan, and there were about 2100 financial leasing companies at the end of last year. He analyzed the external environment for the development of the industry from the perspectives of taxation, laws, regulations and accounting, and believed that the policy prospects were promising. Development of the leasing industry involves not only the transformation from a large amount of lease-back business to direct leasing, but also “Going Out”, i.e. aircraft and steamship leasing. There are two opportunities of “Going Out”, which are the opportunity to develop large projects, and the opportunity to develop premium projects with distinctive features and industrial specialties. He believed that Nansha and Guangzhou have great potential and strong economic support, which will lead to great development.
Ms. Dai Lin from ICBC Leasing delivered a keynote speech entitled “Practice and Ideas on the Application of Cross-border Capital by Financial Leasing Companies”. She explained the necessity of the application of cross-border capital, and advised the leasing companies in the FTZ to build domestic and overseas capital pools and gradually realize effective linkage between domestic and overseas capital pools. She also hoped that there will be further policy-related breakthroughs for the FTZ in terms of regulation of the financial leasing industry, taxation policy, taxation management, etc.
Ren Weidong, vice president of Bohai Leasing, delivered a keynote speech entitled “Speeding up the Launch of Aircraft Leasing by Leveraging the Policy Advantages of Guangdong FTZs”. He believed that Guangzhou has a regional advantage in aircraft leasing, and that the “15 Rules for Nansha Finance” play a positive role in the development of aircraft leasing. He also suggested that the aircraft leasing policies for the FTZ in terms of industrial and commercial administration, foreign exchange administration, capital channels, customs regulations and financial and tax support should be further optimized.
Zeng Jinze, deputy director of the Management Committee of Nansha Development Zone, delivered a keynote speech entitled “Building the New High Ground for the Financial Leasing Industry in South China by Leveraging the FTZ Reform and Innovation Advantages”. Nansha has formed relatively developed industrial clusters for the automobile industry, portside advanced manufacturing industry, and hi-tech industry, and is accelerating the construction of the international shipping center, logistics center, trading center and financial service system, and carrying out infrastructure construction on a large scale. All these measures provide a huge market space for the development of the financial leasing industry. Furthermore, the state will give Nansha a series of pilot policies for financial opening up and innovation, which will provide a good environment for financial leasing development. Financial leasing enterprises are welcome to settle in Nansha FTZ.
Gao Yuhui, general manager of Yuexiu Financial Leasing, delivered a keynote speech entitled “Leveraging the Timing, Geographical and Human Resources Advantages for the Development of the Leasing Industry in Nansha”. He believed that there is a huge historic opportunity for the development of the leasing industry in Nansha, and expected Nansha to create a nationally advanced software and hardware environment for the development of the financial leasing industry. He also said that Yuexiu Leasing is willing to do its best to facilitate the new period of construction of Nansha FTZ.
Luo Jun, executive vice chairman and secretary-general of Guangzhou Financial Leasing Industry Alliance, delivered a keynote speech entitled “Ideas and Suggestions on Improving the Financial Leasing Industry Level in Nansha New Area of Guangdong FTZ”. His suggestions are as follows: Firstly, a financial leasing industry fund with a scale of 10 billion Yuan should be established in Guangzhou to solve the capital bottlenecks encountered by leasing companies; secondly, the integration between emerging strategic industries and the financial leasing industry in Guangzhou should be promoted to facilitate industrial upgrade in Guangzhou; thirdly, publicity efforts should continue to be strengthened to create a good environment for financial leasing in Guangzhou.
It is proposed that the China Nansha Leasing Asset Exchange should be established, so as to speed up the development of leasing enterprises and financial reform and innovation in the FTZ.
Zhang Zhaoxing, chairman of Yuexiu Group, said in his speech that he hoped to work with all member units of the China Financial Leasing 30 Forum to leverage the policy-related advantages of Nansha FTZ, jointly build a nationally advanced Financial Leasing Asset Exchange, and seize the high ground for industry development.
It is learned that if the China Nansha Leasing Asset Exchange proposed by Yuexiu Financial Leasing can be successfully established, it will hopefully become the first financial asset exchange in Nansha FTZ, and the first national exchange in Guangzhou with national influence. This will not only help accelerate the construction of a regional financial center, but also help promote reform and innovation of the financial industry in Nansha FTZ, with great strategic significance.
By virtue of the financial innovation policy for Nansha FTZ, the China Nansha Leasing Asset Exchange will actively explore the domestic and cross-border transactions of real rights, bonds and equity in financial leasing assets, and try to reduce the cost of leasing asset transactions, improve the liquidity of leasing assets, and help leasing companies to improve their asset structure, and realize more healthy and sustainable development.
Yuexiu Group: Building a nationally leading third-party financial leasing company to contribute to the development of the Chinese financial leasing industry.
Yuexiu Group, the sponsor of this forum, was founded in Hong Kong in 1985. After 30 years of development and expansion, it now has three core business sectors, i.e. finance, property and transport, and holds four Hong Kong listed companies including Yuexiu Property, Yuexiu Transport, Chong Hing Bank, and Yuexiu REIT. It has become one of the largest state-owned companies in Guangzhou in terms of asset size, and China’s largest local enterprise residing in Hong Kong in terms of asset size. At the end of 2014, the Group’s total assets exceeded 311 billion Yuan.
The financial sector is one of the three core industrial sectors of Yuexiu Group, with a total asset size of 130 billion Yuan. Currently, the financial sector has several domestic and overseas financial platforms for banking, securities, leasing, industrial funds, guarantee, small loans, etc, and its business network has expanded from Guangdong to the US, Hong Kong, Macau, and about 20 provinces and more than 30 cities in China. It has quickly become an international financial holdings group "Centered on Banking, Securities, and Leasing”, and with “Cross-border Operations and National Expansion”.
Yuexiu Financial Leasing was established by Yuexiu Financial Holdings Group in August 2012, with the place of registration in Nansha. It is the largest foreign financial leasing enterprise which is the first to enter Nansha. The company currently has a registered capital of HKD 3.26 billion , which is ranked 6th among the top 10 foreign financial leasing enterprises in 2014. It is the largest foreign leasing enterprise in Guangdong Province and even South China in terms of capital. The company has quickly established a national presence, with business and financing platforms in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, Hong Kong and other places. The company is also the vice present unit of the Leasing Industry Working Committee of the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment, and the president unit of Guangzhou Financial Leasing Industry Alliance.
So far, the asset size of Yuexiu Leasing has reached 11.5 billion Yuan, with cumulative investment of more than 12 billion Yuan. It has provided approximately 6.5 billion Yuan of funds to enterprises in Guangdong such as Guangzhou Metro and Yudean Group, and become one of the pioneers and main providers of financial leasing service to state-owned companies in Guangdong.
In the future, Yuexiu Leasing will seize the historic opportunity for development of the financial leasing industry, speed up the strategic arrangement in Nansha FTZ, and adopt the approach of “Differentiation, Specialization, Investment Banking, and Internationalization” to build a nationally leading third-party financial leasing company, and contribute to the development of Nansha FTZ and the Chinese financial leasing industry.