ICBC

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited is a large state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing, listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong. According to an article signed by Zhao Yanjing and published on January 17, 2025, in the Nanning Huibo parking-fee case, ICBC lent 7.2 billion yuan pledged against the revenue from 25.5 years of operating rights to about 50,000 parking spaces in Nanning. The article said that the parking spaces obtained by Huibo included 30,535 parking spaces, 36,908 metres of parking strips, 8 government-office car parks and 30 bus parking lots; calculated at 40% of a daily charge of 100 yuan per parking space, 2 million yuan could be collected per day, and after deducting operating costs and assuming a net profit margin of 50%, net income would be 1 million yuan per day, 365 million yuan per year, and a total of 9.3075 billion yuan over 25.5 years. The article also mentioned that Huibo had registered capital of 502 million yuan, of which 2 million yuan was paid in, and that the Qingxiu District Court of Nanning had issued a cooperation memorandum as a condition of the pledge.

In the article, Zhao Yanjing argued that the controversy triggered by this case stemmed mainly from flaws in the Nanning municipal government’s explanation and handling, and proposed converting the relevant road investment into registered capital, making public the uses of parking-fee revenue, and handling disciplinary investigations separately from the fees themselves. The article also proposed that, with incremental financing restricted, local governments should revitalise existing assets, generate stable cash flow through charging fees, and create liquidity with the help of bank financing; commercial banks, for their part, should give local government assets a full valuation.