To fulfill the three major tasks assigned to Shanghai by General Secretary Xi Jinping, further promote the close integration of technology with finance and better serve the building of Shanghai Technology & Innovation Center, on February 28, Shanghai International Group (SIG) and Chinese Academy of Sciences Holdings Co., Ltd. (CASH) entered into a strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing. Chairman Yu Beihua and President Fu Fan of SIG attended the signing ceremony along with Chairman Wu Lebin and General Manager Suo Jishuan of CASH. Under the agreement, the two sides will integrate and employ high-end innovation resources and superior financial capital, and jointly advance key technology achievement transformation and investment & financing cooperation with focus on major technology innovation in strategic emerging industries, to help Shanghai improve its capability of innovation initiation and create an energetic innovation eco-environment.

Central and Shanghai enterprises join hands to serve the development of Shanghai Technology & Innovation Center

As an important platform through which Shanghai deepens the state-owned assets and enterprise reform, with focus on the building of Shanghai into a five center", the integration of the Yangtze River Delta and other major strategies, based on its functional status as a state-owned capital operation company, SIG has stuck to the orientation of marketization, specialization and internationalization, advanced the dual-engine strategy (state-owned assets operation and investment management), explored the reform of the system for authorized operation of state-owned assets and the development of a financial holding company, and striven to build a globally competitive leading capital operation and investment management enterprise serving Shanghai's financial development strategy and state-owned assets and enterprise reform.

CASH is the first operational management company of state-owned assets of central public institutions approved by the State Council. It exercises the investor's right for operational state-owned assets of wholly-owned, holding and joint-stock enterprises directly invested in by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on behalf of CAS, owns more than 40 direct holding enterprises including Lenovo Holdings Co., Ltd., and has been commissioned to supervise more than 760 research institutes of CAS and technology enterprises held by universities.

Based on the cooperation mechanism between CAS and the Shanghai Municipal People's Government, under the principle of "advantage complementation, deep cooperation and sustained development", the two sides will give full play to CASH's impact in technology industries, technical innovation, fund investment and other fields, as well as SIG's advantage in capital operation, investment management, financial resources and regional influence, to promote multi-level connection and cooperation between respective institutions, and provide support for the growth of technology innovation enterprises.

Strategic cooperation expected to achieve outcomes with finance and technology reinforcing each other

SIG and CASH will strengthen all-round cooperation in equity funds. With focus on strategic emerging industries, the two sides will explore and establish a closer cooperation mechanism, optimize the fund structure, jointly guide and drive social resources. CASH and Shanghai Sci-tech Innovation Center Capital under SIG will jointly set up an investment fund focusing on high-end manufacturing, new-generation information technology, biomedicine, environmentally-friendly new energy and other fields. Via CAS's branches and institutes, as well as ShanghaiTech University, the two sides will access technical origins, exert the role of the fund in market resource allocation, and promote the industrialization of technology innovation and achievements.

Besides, the two sides will deepen technology project information sharing and investment cooperation, strive to bring a number of outstanding projects to Shanghai, make full use of their existing technological strengths and industrial foundation, exert the advantage of capital operation and resource integration, deepen industry-finance cooperation, support and guide CAS's technology projects in taking root and growing in Shanghai.

Also, the two sides will jointly conduct financial technology innovation, combine CAS's technical resources with SIG's comprehensive financial service practice, accurately grasp the development trend of financial technology, give play to the great role of technology in promoting financial reforms, explore new financial models, businesses, processes and products, and push forward the deep integration of advanced technologies with financial services.