CHENGDU, Aug. 9 (NBD) -- To facilitate direct financing of more enterprises, Southwest China's Chengdu city is setting a stage for Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) to build its western operations center there.

Jin Liyang, Deputy General Manager of SZSE, said in a previous interview that the planned western center will be a comprehensive service base that serves West China. Through the opening of the center, the southwestern city aims to increase the direct financing ratio of local enterprises to more than 60 percent by 2020, he noted.

Liang Qizhou, Director of the Chengdu Finance Office, told NBD that SZSE's western center will serve three purposes: first, providing guidance, training, and services to companies in West China that plan to be listed across the whole course ranging from restructuring to pre-listing tutoring; second, offering services such as additional share issuance, M&A, and restructuring to listed companies in the region; and third, serving the region's capital market.

At the 13th National Party Congress of Chengdu municipality held in April, the city for the first time integrated the establishment of the western financial hub as one of core functions with its blueprint of building one of China's national central cities.

When being asked how Chengdu will build itself the western financial hub, Liang told NBD that previously, the government highlighted five core functions: capital market, wealth management, settlement center, venture investment and financing, and new finance models, but these cannot reflect Chengdu's superiorities. In the future, the city will give top priorities to the development of TechFin, consumer finance, and rural finance, he stressed.

Last month, the city put forward a plan at the conference on the industrial development of national central cities to develop the modern financial service industry to strengthen its functions as the western financial hub.

According to the 13th five-year plan for the development of Chengdu's financial industry, Chengdu expects to increase the industry's value added to more than 220 billion yuan (32.8 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of 2020, accounting for over 12 percent of the city's GDP.

Liang said that the financial sector is one of pillar industries of Chengdu. The industry generated 138.6 billion yuan (20.7 billion U.S. dollars) of value added last year, making up 11.4 percent of the city's GDP. In the first half of this year, it yielded 75.07 billion yuan (11.2 billion U.S. dollars) of value added, making a contribution of 12.3 percent to GDP there.

To boost the industry development, Chengdu will create an industry investment guidance fund totaling 100 billion yuan (14.9 billion U.S. dollars). This will be a great platform to connect financial fund, financial resources, and social capital.

The first phase of the fund, 30 billion yuan (4.5 billion U.S. dollars), will be put in place in late August, of which 10 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars) will come from government financial institutions, according to Liang.

Chengdu expects to leverage the fund to attract more than 500 billion yuan (74.5 billion U.S. dollars) of social investment, mainly in important industrial projects, strategic emerging industries, innovative enterprises, and startups.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn