Qingdao recently printed and released the Qingdao Three-Year Development Plan for Carbon Finance (2023-2025), in which 20 key tasks relating to carbon finance have been stipulated to channel more financial resources into the green industrial transformation and upgrading drive. Qingdao will strive to see a marked growth in green finance and steady progress on transformation in finance by the end of 2023, to issue more than RMB15bln worth of green bonds and have a more than RMB600bln green loan balance by the end of 2025 when the carbon finance system will be established in the main to sustain the construction of the pilot area for green low-carbon high-quality development.

To cement the foundation of carbon finance, Qingdao will build up a carbon finance project library, incentivize competent authorities across all sectors to adopt the same evaluation criteria, include eligible enterprises and projects into the library, recommend on a regular basis projects to financial institutions and provide support for targeted provision of financial elements. To expand carbon financing channels, Qingdao will instruct banking institutions to optimize their credit policies to facilitate the construction of a clean and low-carbon energy system. With a focus on key green and low-carbon areas, Qingdao will step up credit support to widen the promotion and application of green and low-carbon technologies. To pilot carbon finance, Qingdao will advance the construction of the pilot climate financing and investment project in the West Coast New Area. To optimize the environment for carbon finance, Qingdao will give play to favorable policies, and guide governmental financing guarantee institutions to grant more credit support for key projects of carbon finance that conform to policy regulations.  (Fu Jun)