(Yicai Global) June 1 -- Shanghai’s bond market has played a key role in supporting the real economy during the recent Covid-19 flare-up, with firms based in the city having raised CNY1.07 trillion (USD16 billion) through debt financing in the interbank market over the past three months, according to the central bank’s local branch.

Financial institutions in Shanghai have actively responded to the policies of the People’s Bank of China and boosted help to enterprises through bond financing. The Bank of Shanghai has extended a total of about CNY27 billion in such support to 21 businesses since March by opening up green channels and optimizing business processes, it told Yicai Global.

The Agricultural & Commercial Bank of Shanghai also helped 16 Shanghai-based firms to issue CNY21.1 billion of bonds during the Covid-19 outbreak. The bank also solved the funding needs of companies providing daily essentials in mid-April when the outbreak was serious, and helped them resume production after the flare-up was brought under control.

Since March, Haitong Securities, a leading Shanghai-based brokerage, has underwritten a total of nearly CNY45 billion of various types of bonds in the city.

“The lockdown measures during the pandemic have posed many challenges to our projects,” a source at the broker said. “We’ve taken a diverse approach to continue serving the real economy, such as coordinating online roadshows for investors or moving book-entry venues to other cities to seamlessly integrate all processes.”

On April 29, the PBOC’s Shanghai headquarters issued 20 measures to support pandemic prevention and control as well as economic development. Those measures called on financial institutions to ramp up bond financing for private companies, core industrial chain firms, science and innovation businesses and manufacturing industries, while lending more credit to micro, small- and mid-sized enterprises.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Peter Thomas