TIANJIN - China's first officially registered financial assets exchange debuted at the 4th China International Private Equity Forum in Tianjin on Friday as an integrated financial institution offering a wide range of solutions to investment and finance companies.

Industry experts said the formal establishment of Tianjin Financial Assets Exchange was a significant innovation in the financial arena, as it will serve as a trading platform for financial assets, particularly for banks' non-performing assets.

The assets exchange completed its registration on May 21, the earliest in China, and has so far wrapped up transactions worth 600 million yuan ($87.9 million), said Zhou Liyao, chairman of the exchange.

The exchange was co-founded by China Great Wall Asset Management Corp and Tianjin municipal government.

Focusing on China's domestic market, it aims to develop an electronic financial assets trading platform with a large customer pool that embodies the trading principles of fairness, justice and openness.

The exchange will gather non-performing financial asset sources and share-related information, as well as promote the brokering and fair trading of non-performing financial assets, in order to improve trading efficiency and reduce costs. It will also provide online services for bidding, auctioning, marketing, information release, and pricing and inquiry, according to the requirements of different clients.

Great Wall Asset Management Corp is exploring innovative approaches to financial asset trading with the support of Tianjin municipal government.

At the end of 2009, the China Great Wall Asset Management Corp signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tianjin government to join the financial reform and innovation pilot project of Tianjin Binhai New Area.

China Daily

(China Daily 06/12/2010 page9)