Sinopharm and Guangzhou sign finance deal

Sinopharm Financial Leasing is to set up its South China base in Guangzhou, according to an agreement signed with Guangzhou Development District (GDD) on April 27.

The new base is expected to provide a boost to the city's biomedical industry.

Sinopharm Financial is a joint venture by China National Pharmaceutical and China Life Insurance, two state-owned enterprises ranking in the world's top 500 companies.

The financier will allocate 1 billion yuan ($0.15 billion) in next five years to provide financial services to pharmaceutical and medical companies.

The agreement is expected to contribute to Huangpu district in Guangzhou, whose core industry is biomedicine, and which has a large number of medical projects and research centers.

Statistics show that there are around 600 biomedical enterprises in Huangpu including over 100 high-tech enterprises. The output value of Huangpu's biomedical enterprises accounts for more than 50 percent of Guangzhou's total.

To further accelerate Huangpu's biomedical industry, the district plans to build a biomedical production base to attract more enterprises, aiming to create a biomedical industrial cluster with an annual output value of over 100 billion yuan by 2020.

Guangzhou Development District (GDD) in Huangpu district and Sinopharm Financial Leasing sign an agreement to launch a new financial leasing base on April 27. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]