What’s new: Private companies in Shenzhen borrowed more in September, signaling reviving business confidence in southern China’s tech hub as effects of government’s supportive policies take hold.
As of the end of September, loans taken out by privately owned companies in Shenzhen totaled 2.97 trillion yuan ($407 billion), up 11.6% from the same time a year earlier, according to the Shenzhen branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
The growth of private business lending outpaced other loans by 2.7 percentage points, the bank said.
The context: Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, is home to the most private companies in China, according to Yuan Ying, an official at the PBOC Shenzhen.
As of the end of 2022, Shenzhen had a total of 2.379 million private enterprises, accounting for 97% of the city's businesses, official data showed. The proportion of the private economy in Shenzhen's GDP for that year was 55.9%.
The borrowing growth followed a series of measures to support the private economy issued by Shenzhen authorities and the central government, including policies to encourage banks to lend to small and private businesses.
In the first half, Shenzhen’s economy expanded 6.3% from a year ago, the second-most among all cities in Guangdong, city government data showed. Guangdong’s economy topped all provinces in China during the period.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)
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