June 22, 2022
1. April 2020 saw a pilot project for infrastructure public real estate investment trust (REIT) projects officially launched by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the National Development and Reform Commission. Please can you provide some background and colour to the reasons for this significant move by Chinese authorities? China Infrastructure Real Estate Investment Trusts (hereinafter referred to as “C-REITs”) are another beneficial exploration of financial supply-side structural reform since the pilot registration-based IPO of the Science and Technology Innovation Board and ChiNext. After several rounds of large-scale infrastructure construction, China currently has a huge amount of infrastructure assets. Such illiquid assets restrict reinvestment and cause huge financial pressure on the government. C-REITs aim to revitalize the huge amount of infrastructure assets and strengthen the ability of the capital market to serve the real economy. We believe that C-REITs are the key to realizing the dual circulation development model. In the future, C-REITs are expected to become an effective tool for local public investment, and the C-REITs market is expected to become an internationally leading REITs market with large scale, variety, low risk, and strong liquidity. 2. One of the intentions for these vehicles is to fund projects local governments would otherwise have to finance. What changes and development can we expect to see in the real world in the coming years given the REITs which have already been registered, apart from the financial moves of these funds? In addition to revitalizing existing assets and opening up a new channel for infrastructure project financing, from the perspective of REITs’ development, C-REITs are expected to cover more types of real estate...