Finance people gather for crowd funding forum
By Ou Xinfa and Li Yang| chinadaily.com.cn|Updated: May 13, 2015
China's first crowd funding exchange center will be put into use in Guiyang this month after its establishment was announced at a financial forum in the capital city of Guizhou province on May 8.
The preparatory work for the Guiyang Crowd Funding Financial Exchange, the country's first crowd funding platform, to debut is well under way, said the organizing committee of the exchange at the Crowd Funding Finance+ Forum, held in Guiyang, Southwest China's Guizhou.
Crowd funding refers to the financing mode in which small amounts of capital is pooled from a large number of individuals to finance a new business venture.
A number of government officials, industrial professionals and scholars, led by Wang Yuxiang, vice-mayor of Guiyang, attended the forum, where participants discussed the role of the crowd funding in promoting growth of various industries, such as agriculture.
Fan Han, assistant executive director at Eloancn, a finance company invested by Legend Holdings, said,"In agriculture, returns on the investment are comparatively slow and the price of agricultural product has a major impact on the returns. So, the crowd funding model builds a connection between farmers and customers that can solve this problem."
Fan went on to explain that crowd funding is not just a financing method, but an innovative business model as well that can be applied to many fields.
In commenting further on interest in the forum, Li Bin, chief economist of the finance department of JD, a Chinese electronic commerce company, said,"JD is currently trying to improve its crowd funding site by establishing a crowd funding college, with incubators and supports funds," then added, that it started its crowd funding site last October and has raised 50 million yuan ($8 million) since then.
Echoing these ideas was Huang Chaoda, CEO of Tianshijie.com, who remarked,"I know many entrepreneurs who could not get capital to start their business. That situation motivated me to found Tianshijie.com, which provides financing for micro enterprises and youth entrepreneurs. Hopefully this site can help them get capital support from companies and investors, and help them develop new clients."