Eight recycled plastic bottles yield enough polyester fiber for one T-shirt, while twenty-eight bottles are transformed into a functional outdoor jacket. At the 2025 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, a Chinese narrative of "Turning Waste into Treasure" captured global attention.
The protagonist of this story is Shenghong Holding Group, a private enterprise. Thanks to a RMB 750 million project financing facility from China's Industrial Bank (CIB), Shenghong subsidiary Ruibang Technology has expanded its recycled fiber production line—transforming plastic bottle flakes into textile-grade filament—to an annual capacity of 500,000 metric tons. This operation now upcycles over 30 billion discarded plastic bottles yearly.
The private sector serves as both vanguard of Chinese-style modernization and cornerstone of high-quality development. Rooted in Fujian—a bastion of private enterprise—CIB steadfastly upholds the "Two Unwaverings" principle and promotes the "Jinjiang Experience." By aligning financial innovation with solutions to private enterprises" funding challenges, the bank channels sustained financial vitality into the sector's premium development.
Optimize Institutional Mechanisms to Enhance Service Efficiency for the Private Economy
"During daytime operations, the system prioritizes photovoltaic green power supply to charging stations and owner loads. Excess green energy is stored in the energy storage system, which then powers the loads at night or during cloudy weather, enabling zero-carbon green transportation," a staff member from a renowned smart energy systems company in Zhejiang expressed great pride when discussing the company's "Zero-Carbon Rural Communities" initiative.
The company's residential photovoltaic business currently holds approximately 30% market share, maintaining its position as China's industry leader for multiple consecutive years. An extensive network of over 2,000 agents infuses green momentum into county-level rural areas, while simultaneously posing challenges to the company's supply chain management.
"Our agents are geographically dispersed and vary in scale. CIB's green bill services enable hierarchical and categorized management of upstream agents' corporate qualifications, effectively addressing their persistent difficulty and high costs in securing financing," explained a company executive.
It is reported that leveraging its proprietary "Xingxiang E-Bill" ecosystem, CIB designed a comprehensive green commercial acceptance bills payment and financing solution for the enterprise. This model, utilizing anchor enterprises' buyer-paid interest and credit transmission mechanisms, provides working capital support for agent equipment installation costs. To date, the bank has extended green commercial bill financing credit exceeding RMB 10 billion to over 250 upstream agents.
The innovation in industrial chain financing models and collaborative creation of green development milestones with private enterprises stem from CIB's persistent efforts to strengthen strategic execution capabilities. "Supporting the private economy's growth is one of our bank's core strategies. In March 2024, we became the first among peers to establish and officially launch a dedicated Private Economy Department, further enhancing institution-wide coordination in serving this sector." stated Li Xian, General Manager of CIB's Private Economy Department.
In recent years, CIB has systematically optimized institutional frameworks through measures including establishing a private economy leadership task force, implementing dedicated credit assessment indicators, refining credit approval and duty-of-care exemption mechanisms, and advancing its "technology flow" evaluation system—all to tangibly improve service quality for the private sector. By the end of 2024, the bank's private economy loan balance exceeded RMB 1.7 trillion, serving nearly 470,000 private-sector borrowers.
Recently, CIB issued the "CIB Opinions on Vigorously Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development of Financial Services for the Private Economy," mandating institution-wide alignment with sector-specific characteristics and financing needs. The directive emphasizes four strategic priorities—regional focus, client segmentation, sector specialization, and product innovation—while empowering digital transformation, risk management, and government-bank collaboration to reinforce systemic support for private enterprises.
Innovate Financing Instruments to Support Private Enterprises in Developing New Productive Forces
Technological innovation and industrial innovation form the fundamental pathway for developing new quality productive forces. Facilitating the application of scientific and technological achievements serves as a vital conduit for the deep integration of technological and industrial innovation. CIB continues to strengthen collaborations with leading research institutions and major platforms, embedding financial services into the "R&D phase" to drive technological innovation and business incubation for private enterprises.
In Fuzhou, CIB successfully launched its "Achievements Conversion Loan" financing product, providing RMB 3 million in specialized funding to a high-tech enterprise focused on R&D of optical metrology equipment for chips and intelligent UAV hangar systems, accelerating the transformation of core technologies from laboratories to production lines and converting them into tangible productive capabilities.
"By evaluating innovation metrics such as corporate R&D investment and patent quality, we provide unsecured credit financing support to laboratory-incubated enterprises," explained a representative from CIB's Fuzhou Branch. The Fujian Science & Technology Innovation Laboratory for Optoelectronic Information of China is among Fujian Province's first four pioneering innovation labs. Since signing a strategic cooperation agreement in September last year, CIB has developed a tailored service system for laboratory-incubated enterprises, effectively addressing needs such as technology R&D and equipment procurement for science-driven firms.
Technological innovation and corporate innovation maintain a symbiotic relationship. Enhancing the financing ecosystem to empower private enterprises in strengthening independent innovation proves critical for fostering a virtuous cycle between healthy private economic development and new quality productivity cultivation.
From the "Soaring Loan" safeguarding low-altitude economy technological breakthroughs to the "R&D Loan for Tech Enterprises" empowering ODM (Original Design Manufacturing) firms with intelligent upgrades, in Shenzhen, a city synonymous with innovation, CIB has kept pace with policy directives while streamlining financial services. By addressing the asset-light, R&D-intensive nature of science-driven private enterprises, the bank actively transforms intellectual property into tangible assets, bolstering corporate confidence and growth momentum.
"In product innovation, we have established six specialized systems: Fast Loan for Tech Innovation, Xingsu Loan (Exclusive for Premium Tech Enterprises), R&D Loan, Talent Loan for High-Tech Firms, Equity-Investment-Linked Loan, and Soaring Loan. These collectively address funding needs across intellectual property development, pilot testing, production launch, equipment acquisition, and technological upgrades for tech enterprises," stated a representative from CIB's Shenzhen Branch.
"Building on policy alignment, we persistently advance our "commercial banking + investment banking" strategy to synergize with national directives," remarked an official from CIB's Private Economy Division. Recently, the National Financial Regulatory Administration initiated a pilot program to moderately relax M&A loan policies for technology enterprises. CIB promptly issued a 10-year M&A loan to a Chengdu-based listed private tech company, empowering the company with robust financial backing to optimize resource integration, enhance operational structures, and solidify industry leadership.
In addition to policy transmission, CIB actively leverages financial technology by developing a series of ecological scenario-based applications to support the growth of small, medium, and micro-sized private enterprises. For instance, the bank employs biological asset supervision solutions to monitor upstream dairy farms of New Hope Group in real time, effectively mitigating credit risks. In Anxi, Quanzhou, the bank rely on satellite remote sensing technology and a "planting flow" model to address financing challenges for tea farmers and enterprises lacking traditional collateral. The bank also developed the "Industrial Inclusive·Finance Smart Market System" to drive the digital and intelligent transformation of traditional agricultural wholesale markets.
Diversify Financing Channels to Nurture the Fertile Ground for Private Enterprise Growth
In March this year, amid celebratory bell chimes, a leading electronic shelf label company successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's ChiNext board. Behind the company's expansion lies the sustained, partnership-driven support of financial institutions. Since 2020, CIB's Jiaxing Branch and group affiliates have jointly served the company, not only expanding traditional credit support but also securing two consecutive rounds of equity investment from the group's investment arm, CIIT, fueling the company's IPO preparation and long-term development.
From the 2024 Central Economic Work Conference to the 2025 Government Work Report, the call to "cultivate patient capital" has emerged as a key theme to bolster technological innovation. As a comprehensive financial services group, CIB capitalizes on its multi-license advantages to enhance credit and medium-to-long-term funding, delivering diversified, phased services that underpin private enterprises' technological innovation.
In 2019, the bank provided M&A financing for Will Semiconductor's acquisition of OmniVision Technologies, enabling the company to fill a critical gap in semiconductor CMOS image sensor design. Over the past five years, CIB has offered integrated financing solutions—including stock pledge financing, employee stock ownership plans, industrial equity investments, and M&A loans—propelling the company's rapid acceleration in product line diversification and profitability enhancement, ultimately transforming it into an industry leader with RMB 200 billion market capitalization.
In the bond market, a vital platform for private enterprises' direct financing, CIB has consistently prioritized serving these entities, maintaining a top-tier position in underwriting non-financial corporate debt financing instruments. In 2024, CIB underwrote RMB 35.4 billion in debt financing instruments for private enterprises, ranking second market-wide. The bank also facilitated Jointown Pharmaceutical Group and Sichuan Kelun Pharmaceutical in issuing the interbank market's first private enterprise asset-backed notes, enhancing credit financing capacity through innovative collateral structures.
CIB continues to refine its investment banking expertise, leveraging products such as stock buyback loans, bond financing, M&A loans, and private enterprise innovation support tools to broaden financing channels for private enterprises. Since the introduction of stock repurchase and shareholding increase loans, CIB has established cooperation and completed public announcements with 40 listed companies or major shareholders for such loan agreements, with private enterprises constituting over 80% of these partnerships.
To streamline corporate financing channels and enhance information exchange among governments, banks, and enterprises, CIB has proactively organized initiatives such as "Bank-Government-Enterprise Symposiums" and "Industry-Finance Integration Conferences." Additionally, the bank has established a dedicated working group for private enterprises under its SME financing coordination task force to further strengthen financial support for private small and micro businesses.
Notably, CIB has proactively promoted the private economy as the distinctive feature, competitive advantage, and vitality source of Fujian's economy. The bank has established regular working mechanisms between its nationwide branches and Fujian's Federation of Industry and Commerce at all levels, as well as its affiliated chambers of commerce and Fujianese business associations outside the province, thereby extending financial resources to support private enterprises. To date, CIB has signed strategic cooperation agreements with Fujian chambers of commerce in Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Hunan, Hebei, Ningxia, and other regions. These partnerships enable a deeper understanding of private enterprises' needs and deliver more targeted and effective financial services.