Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chief Economist of Shenwan Hongyuan Research, Yang Chengzhang: Empowering future industries and new consumption through innovation in the capital market

Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Chief Economist of Shenwan Hongyuan Research Yang Chuangzhang

◎Reporter Xu Wei

2026 marks the beginning of the “14th Five-Year Plan” period. How the capital market can precisely empower future industrial development, help improve and expand new consumption, and promote coordinated regional economic growth has become a focus of market attention. Yang Chuangzhang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and Chief Economist of Shenwan Hongyuan Research, said in an interview with Shanghai Securities Journal that the capital market should closely follow the “14th Five-Year Plan” recommendations and deployments, centered on “three breakthroughs and three risks,” to innovate comprehensive financial service models for future industries. This includes efforts in three areas—concepts, valuation, and tools—to serve new consumption, and four major measures to promote high-quality development of local capital markets.

Innovating Comprehensive Financial Service Models for Future Industries

The “14th Five-Year Plan” clearly emphasizes forward-looking planning for future industries. As a key indicator of technological breakthroughs, future industries are an important part of the capital market’s service for new productive forces. Yang Chuangzhang believes that future industries exhibit three main features: common technological breakthroughs, market expansion, and industry leadership. However, their development also involves high uncertainty, bringing three major risks: technological feasibility, industrialization of technology, and market demand scenarios.

In response to these risk characteristics and development patterns, Yang suggests establishing a comprehensive financial service model suitable for future industries: in early development stages, primarily support with policy funds, leveraging government industrial funds and guiding funds; during industrialization, fully utilize private equity and venture capital, encouraging long-term capital to participate more in private equity fund fundraising, and enhancing the inclusiveness and adaptability of multi-level capital markets for future industry companies, including implementing “green channels” for listing; throughout the entire development cycle, strengthen specialized risk management services, cooperate with insurance institutions, and introduce products like technology achievement transformation insurance to reduce R&D trial-and-error costs.

“Capital markets should actively promote the integration of financial and technological services, focusing on solving shared technological risks, risk assessment, and the transformation of technological achievements into industry,” Yang said. The market should accelerate the shift from financing-based models to risk service models, establishing a multi-party mechanism involving diverse financial institutions and tech service intermediaries to share technological risks. Additionally, guiding future industry companies to improve information disclosure quality, jointly creating “technology reports,” and assessing risks from multiple dimensions such as R&D teams, technological pathways, and market potential are essential. Promoting cooperation between financial institutions, tech brokers, and pilot platforms to provide integrated tech and financial services throughout the transformation process, increasing the supply of tech-based asset securitization products, and fostering a healthy cycle among technology, industry, and finance.

Three Major Measures to Break Through Challenges in New Consumption Services

The “14th Five-Year Plan” emphasizes “leading new supply with new demand, creating new demand through new supply, and promoting healthy interactions between consumption, investment, supply, and demand.” Yang believes that new consumption models pose challenges such as intangible asset financing difficulties and valuation mismatches, requiring innovations in concepts, methods, and tools.

“Capital markets need to accelerate the transformation of development concepts and increase focus on service innovation for consumption,” Yang said. The ultimate goal of technological and digital advancements is to enhance residents’ consumption levels. Consumption should not be simply equated with traditional industries; more support should be given to new consumption formats to assist traditional retail transformation and the development of new consumption enterprises.

Regarding valuation methods, Yang advocates adapting to the diverse value forms of new consumption. Financial institutions should build professional teams knowledgeable in finance, society, and culture, while emphasizing the sustainability of consumption behaviors, avoiding short-term hype around influencer-driven or trend-chasing consumption, and focusing on innovation in consumption patterns—highlighting scenarios, generational differences, and brand strength.

Innovating financial tools is key to matching the financing needs of new consumption. Yang recommends accelerating the development of consumer infrastructure REITs, incorporating underlying assets like shopping centers and cold chain logistics to help companies raise funds for upgrades, supporting the transformation of traditional commercial spaces into immersive experience centers and digital live broadcast bases; also encouraging green consumption and digital cultural consumption enterprises to issue green bonds or sci-tech innovation bonds.

Four Major Measures to Promote Local Capital Market Development

The capital market is a vital resource allocation platform. How to scientifically plan regional capital market development paths to better serve high-quality local economic growth has become an important question for various regions. Yang proposes four suggestions:

1. Optimize the basic service environment of the capital market, reshaping credit, institutional, and element support. Local governments should prioritize regional credit building, promote the construction of credit information sharing platforms, improve credit repair mechanisms, and guide enterprises to establish modern corporate systems. Deeply integrate elements like technology, data, and talent with characteristic industries, gather professional service institutions such as securities, auditing, valuation, and intellectual property, and build an integrated, digitalized financial service ecosystem.

2. Continuously discover and cultivate high-quality characteristic enterprises, creating regional advantageous industry sectors. Relying on regional equity markets, establish multi-dimensional evaluation models for enterprise growth, build a service network at provincial, municipal, and county levels, extending capital market services to startups and growth-stage companies. Through tiered and categorized cultivation, achieve effective connection with higher-level capital markets, strengthen the use of tools like equity investment, investment and loan linkage, and intellectual property pledge loans, and improve risk-sharing and credit enhancement mechanisms to reduce financing costs for characteristic enterprises.

3. Deepen the connection between capital markets and regional industries, activating new momentum for industry-finance integration. Encourage securities firms and investment funds to provide integrated services such as equity investment and mergers and acquisitions around weak links in the industrial chain, promoting high-end development of the industry chain. While cultivating new listed companies, revitalize existing listed company resources through asset securitization and ESG governance to enhance their multi-faceted value, and strengthen the leading role of top enterprises.

4. Use capital markets to resolve local debt issues, creating a virtuous cycle of debt resolution and industrial upgrading. Local governments should strengthen full-cycle performance management of special bonds, issue long-term, low-cost bonds to optimize debt structure, and explore innovative tools like sci-tech innovation bonds, transformation bonds, and intellectual property securitization in line with regional industrial planning.

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

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