Nanjing City’s first batch of intellectual property asset-backed securitization (IP abs) program roadshow was held in Jiangsu pilot FTZ Nanjing Area on the afternoon of September 13, which was attended by Shi Wei, Deputy Director General of Intellectual Property Office of Jiangsu Province, Chen Chanmei, Member of the CPC Working Committee of Jiangbei New Area and Deputy Director of the Administrative Committee of Jiangbei New Area, and Guo Jian, Party Secretary and Chairperson of the Board of Yangzi State-owned Investment Group.

IP abs is an innovative model of IPR-based financing that effectively combines IPRs with financial capitals. “Jiangbei Yangzi I—10-phase IP asset-backed special program”—Nanjing’s first IP abs product—will be officially implemented in Jiangbei New Area (Pilot FTZ), after competent authorities at both municipal and district levels have worked hard together for almost one year in bringing out this new financial product.

The program will complete its issuance on the open market through a multi-tiered structure of credit enhancement based on an underlying asset coming from corporate royalties. This new financing model revitalizes the value of corporate IPRs by addressing the pressing concerns of small-and-medium-sized tech and innovative companies to remove the financing barriers.

Nanjing Jiangbei New Area Yangzi Tech Financial Leasing Co Ltd., and Nanjing Jiangbei New Area Green Financing Guarantee Co Ltd., signed cooperative agreements on IPR demonstrative programs with 19 companies on the spot. It was learnt that initiated by Yangzi State-owned Investment Group, Nanjing’s first batch of IP abs program is established on the IPR assets owned by the 19 small-and-medium-sized tech companies in Jiangbei New Area, whose intangible assets will be operated and transferred via a new business model that helps them tackle the difficulties and reduce the cost in the financing process. Altogether, 43 invention patents and 112 utility model patents are included in this pilot program.

Chen Chanmei pointed out that in recent years Jiangbei New Area (Pilot FTZ) has been spearheading the IPR-backed financial sector, gained the first-hand experience in establishing nearly ten platforms for serving IP pledge financing and IP trading financing that can be extended across the province and even nationwide, and put in place China’s first professional IP abs platform. The successful launch of the first batch of IP abs program not only will expand the channel of IP-backed financing for companies in the new area and open up a new chapter in developing the IP-backed financial sector in Jiangbei New Area (Pilot FTZ), but will also offer some lessons to learn from to further explore products of securitization in pilot FTZs in the future.

During the roadshow, six companies including Jiangsu Jiankang51 Network Technology and KeRunXi Medical made on-the-spot promotion on their strengths in the main business, the operational model and the IP core competitiveness. Representatives of investors conducted in-depth discussions with the companies and showed great interest in and support to the corporate core IPRs, laying a solid foundation for the issuance of IP-backed securities. In addition, Professor Song Hefa of Chinese Academy of Sciences addressed the audience with a lecture on “Cultivation and Operation of High-value Patent” and the following Q&A session.

Pivoting on “enhancing IPR protection and facilitating corporate financial innovation”, the event aimed to highlight the results of corporate innovation and creation, and help create a greater number of new models for and gain experience from innovative IP-backed financial services and products for tech businesses, which can be regarded exemplary in the city and province and even across the country.

CCPIT’s Investigation Trip in Jiangsu Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area

On September 13, a mission representing the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) including Vice President Lu Ming of CCPIT Research Institute, Vice President Cong Sufeng (member of the leading Party group) of CCPIT Jiangsu sub-council, and President Liang Jie of CCPIT Nanjing sub-council visited Jiangsu Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area for a fact-finding tour, which was accompanied by Lin Qikun, Member of the CPC Working Committee of Jiangbei New Area and Deputy Director of the Administrative Committee of Jiangbei New Area.

The Nanjing Area was the first stop of CCPIT’s investigation trip to Jiangsu Pilot FTZ, a mission consisting of members from CCPIT Research Institute as well as Jiangsu sub-council and Nanjing sub-council of CCPIT that aimed to improve the service delivery of the CCPIT (Jiangsu) FTZ Service Center based on an in-depth analysis of the development of the business environment in the Pilot FTZ.

Participants at the meeting with the CCPIT mission including Simcere, GemPharmatech, Whitematrix and other FTZ-based companies shared their own stories on how their production and operation were affected by the institutional innovation of the Nanjing Area, and made suggestions for the administration to further improve the business environment in the future.

Representatives from relevant departments of Jiangbei New Area also made presentations at the meeting elaborating on their key agendas respectively, including enhancing the rule of law, upgrading of the regional transport system, introduction of superior medical resources, establishment of a HR service ecosystem, and improvement of government-related service delivery. It was learnt that since its inception, the Nanjing Area has been leveraging its “double role” as being both a pilot FTZ and a state-level new area to experiment, explore, and take the initiative in making innovations, and has implemented over 95% of key reformative tasks and spearheaded more than 100 reformative and innovative results in cumulative terms.

Lin Qikun pointed out that improvement of the business environment is always put on top of the agenda in the Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area where efforts are oriented to serve well the market players, institutional innovations are made to meet their needs, and new initiatives are evaluated by whether market players are benefited from them. In the future, the Nanjing Area will continue to attract the top-flight talent to serve the development of its pillar industrial clusters whose strength and competitiveness will be further enhanced through spearheading the differentiated explorations, breaking down barriers and blazing new trials.

Lu Ming lauded the strong momentum in the industrial and innovation-driven development in the Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area. In the coming days, CCPIT will work to set up a cooperative mechanism with the Nanjing Area in which resources of CCPIT can be leveraged to deliver systemic and customized services to the Nanjing Area to address the concerns of its market players. Meanwhile, CCPIT will probe into the industrial strength and the innovative results of the Pilot FTZ Nanjing Area, based on which experience-sharing and study tours can be conducted in various forms to extent and duplicate the best practices and successful cases, to offer new ideas, new trials and new practices for the development of pilot FTZs nationwide.

After the meeting, the mission headed by Lu Ming also visited Nanjing Jiangbei New Area Planning Exhibition Hall, IASO BIO and BIOHENG as part of the investigation tour.