OREANDA-NEWS. September 13, 2013. 81 years old miner Gao Guangfu recently moved back to his new home in Jinlin province's Liaoyuan City (Xi'an District, Hexi Xinyuan Mini-district). Based on the local shantytown reform policy, Gao original 100m2 shantytown home was turned into three new 50m2 homes.

Hexi Xinyuan Mini-district is only one of many reform projects for coal mine shantytowns in Liaoyuan City. Many projects like this are still being implemented in Jilin Province, including an overall relocation & reform project for the old Hadawan industrial district, which is an old "First Five Year Plan" industrial district.

China Development Bank (CDB) has been cooperating with Jilin Province for many years and the former has played an important role in these projects.

To address financial problems, CDB held talks with local governments and reached a breakthrough with respect to the situation whereby local companies are responsible for financing constructions. Together with the local governments, the bank established market-oriented financing vehicles, early-stage loans are invested into projects to enable their smooth implementation, and this will form a development model that encourages the entry of other social capital during the later stages.

But these projects are different as the commercial development value of such lands is lower and the funding gap is also larger. Hence balancing risks and benefits will be an unavoidable test for CDB.

Shantytown reforms face large funding gap

According to The Economic Observer, Liaoyuan City has plans to complete all shantytown reform projects by 2015, and based on current estimates, this would require Rmb13 billion, which implies a Rmb3.5-4 billion funding gap.

"The biggest problem is funding the shantytown reforms. The plots with better commercial value have all been reformed and we're now left with the ones with poor commercial value. We need the government to take the lead and our city's financial resources are very limited. This year alone, we needed about Rmb2.6 billion to complete projects, commence new ones, carry out demolition work and repay loans", said Liaoyuan City Vice Mayor Tan Hai to the press."

Liaoyuan is a typical resource-exhausted city with big shantytowns distributed across the city in large numbers. The city plans to invest Rmb11 billion to relocate and demolish 4.6 million m2 of shantytowns and construct 8 million m2 worth of projects. Unlike the relatively developed cities on the eastern coast that are able to achieve an overall balance, Liaoyuan City cannot emulate their land use and commercial development model. "CDB is our first and most active partner. Other banks only provided short-term bridging loans and interest rates continue to rise. For an area like ours that relies on transfer payments from the finance ministry to sustain ourselves, the lack of CDB support would create a big pressure on us", said Tan Hai.

A CDB official indicated that CDB's Jilin branch has provided Liaoyuan City with nearly Rmb2 billion worth of loans, with loan periods mostly between 10 to 15 years and interest rates based on the benchmark interest rate.

Faced with this huge financial pressure, Liaoyuan City has been trying to address through channels such as state subsidies, bank loans, provincial government subsidies and interest discounts for loans.

Also being affected by funding problems is an overall relocation & reform project (started in 2010) in the old Hadawan industrial zone, which is located in northwestern region of Jilin City.

On July 24, the Jilin Municipal Government's Deputy Secretary-General Zhang Guangyu told the press that that a key aspect of Hadawan's overall relocation and reform lies in the relocation of four major highly polluting enterprises (involved in the production of carbon, cement, ferroalloy and paper). These four major enterprises account for nearly half of the industrial zone's total area and a lot of work will be involved, which includes the overall relocation of the industrial zone and also the reform of residential shantytowns.

According to Zhang, a total of Rmb10.4 billion was originally invested for the project, it comprised Rmb3 billion in capital and a bank loan of Rmb7.4 billion.  Of this amount, CDB contributed Rmb1.05 billion in capital and Rmb7.4 billion in bank loans.

New financing model
For Hadawan's reform, CDB looked at a new financing model and innovated particularly in terms its loans' credit structure and mode of operation. It attempted to strike a balance between serving national strategic goals and commercial sustainability.

Industrial pollution in the Hadawan area is comparatively heavy and seriously affects the quality of life and living environment of nearby residents. Furthermore, this region is located within the city core and thus seriously affects the entire city's development. Through relevant pollution control and sustainable development plans, the Hadawan region will complete its transformation from an old industrial zone to a low-carbon eco-city within a few years.

During discussions with the Jilin municipal government over cooperative efforts with regard to the Hadawan Industrial Zone Off-site Upgrading & Reform Project, CDB and the former reached a consensus on the diversified nature of the ownership structure for financing.

After studying State Council documents on regulating local government debt and rectifying local financing vehicles, as the formation of vehicles in provinces like Hainan, CDB changed the current financing models for BT (build-transfer), entrusted construction and other urban construction projects. This changed the situation whereby local state-owned urban investment groups were wholly responsible for financing construction projects. By borrowing the internationally accepted "public-private partnership model", CDB was able to establish special purpose companies (with equity ownership that includes social capital) to take charge of financing, developing, consolidating and constructing duties in special urban zones, thereby enabling progressive development and revenue sharing.

In addition, CDB also carried out integration and cash flow design work on government resources, which allowed the new financing body to become a market-oriented one with sufficient effective resources, a stable net operating cash flow and strong solvency. As a result, the strategic investor CDB capital was directly roped into to the Hadawan project's financing body. Together with Jilin's financing vehicle, it jointly established the special purpose company CDB Jilin Investment Co., Ltd. (CDB Jilin).

The Jilin Municipal Government and CDB Capital undertook to respectively inject Rmb1.95 billion and Rmb1.05 billion in cash into CDB Jilin. At present, Rmb650 million from Jilin City and Rmb350 million from CDB have already been transferred.

CDB Jilin's cash flow structure is based primarily on land transfer revenue, and supplemented by several other revenue sources such as company tax returns, land transfer returns and revenue from region-specific land concession rights. Concurrently, the Jilin municipal government has agreed to properly coordinate Jilin City and the Hadawan region's land supply plans within the repayment period, so as to ensure that loans can be repaid on time.

It was reported that CDB is also committed to providing the project with Rmb7.4 million of long-term loans, with the first batch of Rmb1.48 billion having already been transferred.

As a whole, the Hadawan project can be divided into three phase: the launch phase, during which the project has yet to generate revenue and its loans are guaranteed by major shareholders, thus ensuring its smooth launch; the land development and consolidation phase, during which the land "matures" and the company responsible for the project requests the Jilin Municipal Government to grant it first level land development rights, thereby creating pledge conditions for the loans; the land transfer and repayment phase, during which the land meets the transfer conditions and the banks release their mortgages in batches, thus enabling listing transfers and land development revenue to be generated.

According to an official from CDB's Jilin branch, the Hadawan project is primarily based on progressive land development; land is consolidated and transferred, after which part of the revenue is used to repay loans and another part is used to develop the next plot of land, thus continuing the development cycle. With respect to the operational aspects of capital, CDB requires borrowers to sign an account supervision agreement which allows the bank to control key funding points and ensure the internal flow of funds as well as funding limits.

However, commercial banks still harbor doubts over such shantytown reform projects. For instance, the Hadawan project involves the construction of a new city and is a large-scale, policy-oriented public project, and most banks believe that the development value and revenue potential of these lands is often low. It is therefore important to look at how CDB, a bank which invests greatly in affordable housing projects, would balance the risks and benefits.