Guangzhou City Investment Group and China Life Insurance Group signed a cooperation agreement to jointly establish a 10 billion yuan City Investment Development Fund, specifically for Guangzhou's major infrastructure construction and key functional area development.
Guangzhou City Investment stated that the City Investment Development Fund is registered in the Guangzhou Development District, and the raised funds are mainly used for major construction projects such as Guangzhou infrastructure and PPP projects, as well as key livelihood projects such as housing leasing, and the development of key urban areas such as Pazhou and the International Financial City. Next, Guangzhou City Investment and China Life will fully leverage their comparative advantages in funds, resources, and capital to deepen cooperation in broader fields.
Data shows that on the eve of the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, Guangzhou City Investment was once an important urban construction financing platform in Guangzhou. However, afterwards, the central government, for the purpose of controlling the rapid rise of local government debt, required local city investment groups to gradually transform into general state-owned enterprises and no longer assume the function of financing local government infrastructure. Guangzhou City Investment also restructured after the Asian Games and was placed under the management of the Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, transforming from a single government financing platform to an urban operation entity, gradually forming five major business segments: urban infrastructure construction, asset management, development and real estate, capital operation, and cultural tourism.
However, after Guangzhou City Investment downplayed its government infrastructure financing attribute, the Guangzhou Municipal Government established the Guangzhou Industrial Fund in 2013 to finance some urban construction projects in Guangzhou through fund operations. The official website of the Guangzhou Industrial Fund shows that its subsidiary Guangzhou Chengfa Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. has reached a scale of tens of billions, with business involving urban infrastructure and industrial upgrading. In 2017, the fund also initiated the establishment of a 10 billion yuan Guangzhou Rail Transit Industry Investment and Development Fund, specifically for the development of rail transit.
After the establishment of the 10 billion yuan City Investment Development Fund by Guangzhou City Investment this time, it is expected that Guangzhou will form a dual-wheel drive model of development fund and industrial fund in the future, with the former focusing on infrastructure construction and the latter focusing on industrial capital investment, jointly supplying blood to Guangzhou's urban economic development.