China's financial institutions have enhanced their support for the real economy, with 251 trillion yuan of RMB loans balance registered at the end of July, said a spokesman of the National Financial Regulatory Administration on Wednesday.
"At the end of July, the balance of RMB loans stood at 251 trillion yuan (about 35.19 trillion U.S. dollars), marking an increase of 13.5 trillion yuan (about 1.89 trillion U.S. dollars) since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, the balance of bond investments by banking and insurance institutions reached 103 trillion yuan (about 14.44 trillion U.S. dollars), reflecting a rise of 4.9 trillion yuan (about 690 billion U.S. dollars). Additionally, the balance of insurance funds utilization amounted to 31 trillion yuan (about 4.35 trillion U.S. dollars), showing a 7.4 percent increase," said Xiao Yuanqi, deputy head of the administration.
The structure of financial resources has been further optimized, Xiao added.
"Support for advanced manufacturing and technological innovation has been strengthened, with manufacturing loans increasing by 11.4 percent year on year by the end of July, while loans to high-tech industries grew by 13.9 percent. Financial services for small and micro enterprises, as well as the agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, have also improved, with inclusive small and micro enterprise loans rising by 17.1 percent year on year by the end of July. Additionally, the financial sector's support for the health industry and the silver economy has intensified, with loans to the elderly care industry up by 16.1 percent from the beginning of the year," he said.
In terms of integrating the digital economy with the real economy, loans to core industries in the digital economy increased by 12.4 percent year on year. Furthermore, the insurance industry has played a critical role in supporting the rapid recovery of production and daily life following natural disasters such as floods. In the first seven months of the year, insurance payouts reached 1.39 trillion yuan (about 190 billion U.S. dollars), representing a year-on-year increase of 30.2 percent. By the end of July, the insurance industry had provided 28.5 trillion yuan (about 4 trillion U.S. dollars) in various financing supports through bonds, stocks, and other channels, he said.
China's financial sector shows robust support for key industries by July
Shanghai, a leading force for Chinese modernization, is accelerating the pace of building itself into a science and technology innovation center with global influence.
The tech-savvy metropolis is now speeding up the transition from structure building to function strengthening. Taking strengthening the capability of fostering original sci-tech innovations as the main task, it is pursuing both sci-tech innovation and institutional innovation to significantly improve its comprehensive strength in science and technology as well as the overall effects of innovations.
Over the past 10 years since Shanghai began building itself into an international science and technology innovation center, it has reaped fruitful results in sci-tech innovation, which has pushed the metropolis' GDP across the 4-trillion-yuan (about 570 billion U.S. dollars) mark.
In 2023, Shanghai's total research and development expenditure accounted for 4.4 percent of its GDP, and the city's fiscal expenditure on science and technology rose by 36.7 percent to 52.8 billion yuan (about 7.47 billion U.S. dollars).
Driven by science and technology advances, Shanghai's industrial transformation has sped up. The combined scale of the three leading industries of artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, and biomedicine in the city has reached 1.6 trillion yuan (about 226 billion U.S. dollars).
At the National Local Joint Humanoid Robot Innovation Center in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Science City, Qinglong, an open-source general-purpose humanoid robot with a height of 182 centimeters and up to 43 active degrees of freedom, is being trained to pick up oranges.
"After some training, the robot will be able to complete this move by itself when it encounters a similar scenario in the future," said Shi Zhihua, trainer of robot Qinglong.
Thanks to an advanced control software, Qinglong can skillfully perform fast walking, avoid obstacles, go uphill and downhill, and resist impact.
"We plan to build a venue that can simultaneously train 1,000 robots by 2027," Shi said.
The Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), a third-generation medium-energy synchrotron light source facility with 46 laboratories, has been operating around the clock to serve researchers from around the country, whose experiments cover a wide range of fields such as life sciences, materials science and chemical catalysis.
"We are using the SSRF's light to observe the phase change process of this material when it's heated to 1,100 degrees Celsius," said Song Shuang, a PhD candidate of Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"Our team is developing materials for the energy sector," said Miao Zhikai, a researcher of Tianjin University.
"We are developing cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries," said Li Guodong, a researcher of Fudan University.
Though the laboratories at the SSRF have been running at full capacity, researchers still have to apply for them months in advance, reflecting the vibrancy of innovation in Shanghai.
Shanghai blazes sci-tech frontiers to boost innovation-driven modernization
