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22:40, 05-Sep-2017
China to issue green bonds to individuals for first time
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The state-owned China Development Bank (CDB), said on Tuesday that it will issue green bonds to raise funds for water resource protection along the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and for the first time, individual investors can purchase such bonds.
The bank said it will issue no more than 5 billion yuan (about 763.2 million US dollars) in three-year green bonds next Tuesday, and no more than 4.4 billion yuan in bonds will be issued to the inter-bank bond market.
According to the policy bank, a limit of 600 million yuan in bonds will be available to individual investors.
Funds raised from the bond issuance will primarily be spent on three water protection and treatment projects in central China's Hubei Province, including an environmental protection project on the Hanjiang River in Xiangyang City.
Upon completion, the projects are expected to reduce pollution by at least 6,091 tons of dichromate oxygen, 5,787 tons of suspended solids and 761 tons of total nitrogen each year.
China’s central government has been pushing for the development of green finance in order to seek sustainable growth and honor its commitments to addressing climate change.
The CDB has issued 15 billion yuan of green bonds in the inter-bank bond market for air pollution control, coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and green cyclical development so far this year, according to the bank.
According to credit rating agency Moody's, green bond issuance worldwide hit a record high of 93.4 billion US dollars in 2016, rising 120 percent from a year earlier, bolstered by China-based issuers. These accounted for nearly 40 percent of new green bonds last year, followed by the US, France and Germany.
Source(s): Xinhua News Agency