Innovative program lends helping hand

After more than a year of development, Beijing is dedicated to an innovative program helping cultural and creative companies solve their finance problems through funding platforms.

At the end of 2017, the State-owned Cultural Assets Supervision and Administration Office of the Beijing government joined hands with other authorities including the Beijing finance bureau to issue a new policy, providing cultural and creative companies with support in equity financing, loans and related incentives.

Alongside the policy, the authorities have also launched public platforms to implement such initiatives.

One of the policy-implementing platforms is an online financial services portal designed for the cultural and creative industry.

The policy is a typical example of how Beijing solves the financing problems of its cultural and creative companies, said Tao Zui, president of the platform.

The platform is committed to mobilizing industrial resources, promoting financial incentives and broadening financing channels for cultural companies to help them reduce financing costs and alleviate financial difficulties, he added.

As of November 2018, the platform had attracted more than 5,100 companies and over 170 banks, equity investors and other financial institutions, as well as third-party service institutions, which had completed more than 9.8 billion yuan ($1.43 billion) in funding, Tao said.

Data from the platform show that the average success rate of financing is 32 percent and it helps reduce companies' financing costs by 34 percent.

Beijing Weiyu, a media and communications company founded in 2015, applied for financial support on the platform in 2017.

Kong Xiangliang, president of the company, said he received feedback from Bank of Beijing the following day after the application and obtained a loan worth 500,000 yuan within a month.

"In the past, it took three to six months to get financing, but now it only needs three weeks," Kong said.

The cultural and creative companies are characterized by a high-risk and an asset-light business model, Tao said, adding that his team works to help these companies turn their intellectual property into assets and then into capital.

The platform will further fine tune its methods and system to meet the needs of companies through the internet, big data and more financial tools.

"We will also expand our functions to help companies in other fields, such as setting up intelligent institutions and an entrepreneur club," he added.

The Culture Creative Equity Exchange is another financing platform launched by the authorities.

Liu Qian, an official at the platform, said that the platform was consistent with Beijing's wider efforts to turn itself into a cultural hub.

To date, nearly 4,800 companies and more than 500 financial institutions have registered on the platform and it has completed nearly 10 billion yuan in investment and financing, Liu said.

The platform works with other partners around the country, she said, adding that it has set up operations centers in the city of Tianjin and in Hebei province.

"It's a difficult process to develop an industry standard for financing cultural and creative companies," she added.

The platform will continue to focus on providing investment and financing services for cultural businesses and sort out relevant standards for the cultural and creative industry through collaboration with academic institutions and trade associations, Liu said.

"We will attract more resources from around the country to promote the development of the cultural industry and make more contributions to the construction of the national cultural center."

(China Daily 01/15/2019 page7)