Xiantao International Big Data Valley is an industrial park located in Yubei District, Chongqing, China, which focuses on the layout of big data, small sensing tech, and cloud applications to develop financial, health, and education data, as well as cross-border electricity suppliers. (Photo/Chongqing University)

Chongqing - Chongqing has recorded 125.9 billion yuan (about 17.67 billion U.S. dollars) in land factor market transactions and helped over 1,000 companies secure more than 100 billion yuan in financing, making it China’s only province-wide pilot for market-based allocation reforms among 10 new sites approved by the State Council on September 8.

Land, labor, capital, entrepreneurship, and emerging resources like data are the backbone of economic activity. Efficient allocation drives productivity, innovation, and growth. In China, these factors were traditionally state-distributed, but reforms now aim to make allocation more market-driven to boost efficiency and support high-quality development.

"Among the 10 pilot regions deployed by the State Council, Chongqing represents the only province-wide coverage, while others encompass partial cities, metropolitan areas, or city clusters within provinces," noted Tian Qinggang, associate professor at Chongqing Technology and Business University. This reform pilot benefits from Chongqing's advantages in factor trading, managing property rights, market-based pricing, and transaction settlement systems.

Chongqing is using the Western Digital Trading Center to pilot data pricing, registration, matching, and settlement. At the recently passed 2025 World Smart Industry Expo, the city reiterated its push to unlock data value and build a market allocation model.

Chongqing Liangjiang Smart City Investment and Development Co., Ltd completed data asset inventory work totaling 7.59TB storage capacity, 157 data resource tables, 660 million data items, and 3.9 billion total data entries, achieving 15.85 million yuan in recorded asset value as the city's first complete data factor capitalization demonstration case.

The Western Data Trading Center partnered with Huaxia Bank to facilitate China's first data asset-linked mortgage loan in Chongqing, enabling enterprises to register data assets online for mortgage procedures, successfully exploring new pathways for enterprise data asset financing. Chongqing Rail Transit completed registration procedures for Chongqing rail transit QR code basic data assets, achieving breakthroughs in state-owned enterprise data asset registration.

Additionally, Chongqing has constructed the nation's most diverse comprehensive factor trading market.

Since Nanchuan District was included in the second batch of national pilots for rural collective land market entry in March 2023, such land now enjoys equal rights and pricing with state-owned land for transactions and mortgages. Entrepreneur Chen Zehong leased abandoned school land for 20 years at 35,000 yuan annually to build a slaughterhouse.

In Banan, Chongqing Rural Land Exchange successfully attracted Zhejiang Moganshan homestay owners, facilitating land transactions in Yinglong Village at 45% premium rates and 1.12 million yuan per acre. Since 2023, cumulative land market transactions have reached 34 plots covering 251 acres worth 137 million yuan.

Since 2023, Chongqing’s digital “land store” has served 26 districts and counties, publishing 313 projects covering 22,000 acres. As China’s first comprehensive regional equity market reform pilot in the central and western regions, the city has facilitated 28 IPOs, three merger and acquisition listings, and 33 New Third Board listings, ranking first nationwide in new listed companies.

Chongqing’s equity market has helped enterprises raise over 100 billion yuan. This year, a big data trading platform enabled creditworthy firms to secure 37.4 billion yuan in new financing and supported 1,194 reserve enterprises preparing for listing.