Chongqing- Southwest China's Chongqing Rebo Lighting and Electronics Co., Ltd (Rebo), located in the Liangjiang New Area, received a cross-border bank loan of 15 million yuan (about 2.2 million U.S. dollars) recently. This loan was intended to alleviate the pressure on the company's funding in R&D, which benefited from the city's financial opening-up in the service industry.
The government bears 50% of the default risk
The science and technology cross-border loan in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area serves as the country's first cross-border financing product for high-tech enterprises. The government and cooperative banks share the default risk at 50% respectively and provide subsidized interest to enterprises that repay the loan on schedule, dramatically reducing the enterprise's financing cost and bank's loan risks.
As a supplier of lamp control systems based in the Liangjiang New Area, Rebo has entered the supply system of domestic and foreign vehicle enterprises such as Changan, Changan Ford, and Tesla, with a sales revenue of more than 300 million yuan last year. It plans to build more laboratories.
Li Changqiong, deputy general manager and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Rebo, said that enterprises were plagued with few channels and cumbersome procedures if they wanted to use overseas funds before. This situation has been alleviated by launching the science and technology cross-border loan in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area.
"From application to the final receipt of the loan, the process took only three months for Rebo's newly built labs, which timely solved the urgent need for the company's funds," said Li.


Rebo photoelectric production workshop. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Expanded opening-up of financial sectors
In April 2021, the State Council officially approved for Chongqing to carry out a comprehensive pilot program to expand and open up the service industry. After a year of exploration and promotion, Chongqing's expanded opening-up of the service industry has achieved remarkable results.
In the financial sector, the city has achieved some innovative cases and pilot outcomes such as the science and technology cross-border loan, a new plant variety rights pledge loan model, pilot reform of one-time foreign debt registration, and management of non-financial enterprises in Chengdu and Chongqing.
In cross-border financing, Chongqing has reduced the threshold of enterprise financing and shortened the time limit for cross-border financing approval by various measures such as the one-time foreign debt registration of non-financial enterprises and high-tech pilot enterprises to borrow foreign debt within the 5 million U.S. dollars independently.


Chongqing Jiangbeizui Financial Core Area. (iChongqing file photo)
Promoted science and technology insurance
Last year, Chongqing handled 48 billion yuan of one-time foreign debt registration. The government and banks have cooperated to launch the science and technology cross-border loan and other credit loan products, with an average household loan amount of about 4 million yuan. Meanwhile, by continuously promoting the pilot of the trade finance blockchain platform, the approval time of traditional trade financing has been shortened from 1-2 days to 15 minutes, which significantly facilitates the trade financing of import and export enterprises.
In financial services, Chongqing promoted science and technology insurance, sharing the risks for science and technology firms and ensuring their stable operation. Meanwhile, the cooperation of cross-border commercial medical insurance products provided the residents with insurance services that allow domestic insurance and cross-border compensation, helping residents to obtain more high-quality overseas medical assistance.
According to Wu Heng, deputy director of Chongqing Local Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, Chongqing's pilot project in the financial sector has achieved good results with joint efforts. The outcomes of the pilot implementation not only serve for the social and economic development, meeting the needs of various market entities for cross-border financing, cross-border investment, and financial services but also make a good exploration for the expanded opening-up of the financial industry under the new situation.
(Ge Rongchen, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)