The exchange bond market's financing scale has surpassed 10 trillion yuan! Guangdong supports bond financing to "prosper"

On March 25th, the “2026 Guangdong Bond Market High-Quality Development” training and exchange conference was held in Guangzhou, jointly organized by the Guangdong Provincial Financial Office, Guangdong Securities Regulatory Bureau, and Guangdong State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Over 350 representatives from regulatory agencies, local governments, stock exchanges, bond issuers, and intermediary institutions gathered to discuss new trends and opportunities in bond development and to create a new chapter.

The event aimed to thoroughly implement the relevant deployment of the “14th Five-Year Plan” and the new “National Nine Policies” for the capital market, earnestly carry out the specific arrangements of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee’s “1310” plan, the provincial government’s “Measures for High-Quality Development of the Capital Market to Support Guangdong’s Modernization,” and the spirit of the 2026 provincial high-quality development conference. It sought to promote Guangdong enterprises to actively utilize exchange-traded bonds, ABS, and REITs to diversify financing channels, better connect with the capital market, and achieve high-quality development. The conference included training on bond market reform and issuance policies, credit bond products and REITs policies and practices, as well as experience sharing on promoting local state-owned enterprise bond financing, sci-tech innovation bond issuance, and asset securitization tools to activate existing assets. The “Bond Financing Service Manual” and materials sharing experiences on reforming local SOE investment and financing systems, utilizing REITs to activate assets, and financial services combining “credit enhancement + investment” were issued to promote policy implementation at the grassroots level.

It is understood that in recent years, the exchange bond market has focused on building a modern industrial system, aligning with the needs of the real economy, and balancing quantity growth with quality improvement, continuously enhancing market functions. By 2025, the exchange bond market had issued over 16 trillion yuan in various bonds. By the end of 2025, the custody scale reached 36.73 trillion yuan, with non-financial enterprise bonds accounting for 15.87 trillion yuan, representing 52% of the total market, becoming an important channel for direct financing of real enterprises. Meanwhile, reforms of the bond registration system have deepened, bond renewal mechanisms introduced, market-making incentives strengthened, and credit bond ETFs included in repurchase pledge repositories. In 2025, the total trading volume of bonds and repos reached 66.7 trillion yuan, with liquidity being reasonably ample, and market operation efficiency continuously improving.

The exchange bond market has also made notable achievements in supporting national strategies and key sectors: since the launch of sci-tech innovation bonds in 2021, over 2.29 trillion yuan have been issued, with the introduction of sci-tech innovation bond ETFs and convertible bonds gaining market favor. By 2025, a total of 197.9 billion yuan in green bonds, rural revitalization bonds, SME bonds, and “Belt and Road” bonds had been issued. To support expanding domestic demand, the market supported eligible consumer sector companies in issuing bonds, ABS, and REITs, raising 364.3 billion yuan. It also implemented the “two unwavering” policies, supporting private enterprise bond financing of 107.8 billion yuan. ABS issuance totaled approximately 1.46 trillion yuan, with new products in fields like low-altitude economy. The REITs market is accelerating in expansion and quality improvement, with 79 REITs listed, raising 215.5 billion yuan, with a market value of 223.5 billion yuan, effectively supporting asset activation and expanding effective investment.

Guangdong, as a front-runner in reform and opening-up, has seen a steady development in the bond financing sector, with issuance and financing scales steadily increasing. In 2025, enterprises in the province issued 1.03 trillion yuan in exchange-traded bonds, a 13% year-on-year increase, with net bond financing reaching 228.3 billion yuan, up 153%. Sixty-eight new bond issuers debuted, with issuance structures continuously optimized and financing costs effectively reduced. The issuance of bonds with maturities over three years reached 557.2 billion yuan, up 39%, including ultra-long-term bonds over ten years totaling 82.1 billion yuan. The province’s weighted average coupon rate for bond financing in 2025 was 2%, down 31 basis points year-on-year. Special bonds such as sci-tech innovation bonds, green bonds, and “Belt and Road” bonds have strongly supported the implementation of national key strategies in Guangdong. For example, Guangdong Environmental Protection Group innovatively issued “green + sci-tech” dual-labeled bonds and used flexible “reallocation” strategies to precisely seize issuance windows, issuing nine sci-tech innovation bonds totaling 8.28 billion yuan, with interest rates dropping from 3.36% in early 2023 to an average of about 1.9% in 2025, significantly enhancing the company’s technological strength and image, and reinforcing its label as a “tech-based environmental enterprise.”

“Successful issuance of REITs has enabled companies to upgrade from a single ‘industry operation’ model to a ‘industry + capital operation’ dual-driven model,” said Yuexiu Group during the exchange, sharing their asset securitization experience. By securitizing assets, the group raised over 26 billion yuan, effectively supporting steady development and driving a 13-fold increase in asset scale over 20 years. Asset securitization not only expanded the group’s capital operation platform but also helped improve credit ratings, enhance financing capacity, and through issuing Huaxia Yuexiu Expressway REIT, achieved a “curved return” to A-shares for Yuexiu Transportation.

A relevant official from the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s Bond Department stated, “We will continue to support Guangdong enterprises in fully utilizing bonds, ABS, REITs, and other financial tools for financing and development, support the activation of existing assets, and expand effective investment to better serve Guangdong’s high-quality economic and social development.” The exchange bond market will further improve the quality and efficiency of primary bond issuance services, deepen the reform of the bond registration system, establish financing systems suitable for different types of enterprises, optimize bond issuance and listing services and product maturity structures, strengthen the development of the secondary bond market, steadily promote innovation in bond and product offerings, and foster coordinated development of the stock, bond, ABS, and REITs markets to support asset activation and expand effective investment, better empowering the high-quality development of the real economy.

Relevant leaders from the Guangdong Provincial Financial Office and Guangdong Securities Regulatory Bureau also spoke at the conference, emphasizing the need to strengthen coordination and support Guangdong enterprises in connecting with the capital market for high-quality development. They also highlighted that all market entities should keep pace with bond market reforms, seize the current low-interest-rate window, and direct bond financing resources toward key areas of the real economy. They urged full utilization of various financing products and asset activation tools in the exchange market to solidify asset activation, improve incremental growth, and more strongly support Guangdong enterprises’ high-quality development.