An airscape of Xiamen University, located in Siming district in Xiamen, East China's Fujian province.

Baicheng Beach in Siming district.

Night view of Lujiang Road in Xiamen.

The district of Siming in Xiamen, East China's Fujian province, has implemented a series of innovative financial tools and policies to significantly enhance its investment attraction.

The local government has introduced Development and Management Measures for Siming District's Private Equity Investment Fund Aggregation Zone and has established four private equity investment fund aggregation carriers, heralding a more optimized industrial layout and stronger regional synergy in the private equity fund ecosystem.

In partnership with the Xiamen financial bureau, the four private equity fund aggregation platforms have created a more favorable industrial layout and stronger regional synergy in the private equity fund ecosystem.

To date, 17 private equity fund management companies have established operations in Siming.

The district has taken salient measures to upgrade its fiscal policies and use financial instruments to support the real economy.

Through its unique cooperation model between industry-guiding and market-oriented funds, it now has the city's greatest number of locally registered fund management companies and managed funds, particularly in terms of equity investment funding exceeding 100 million yuan ($13.61 million).

The district has used financing tools to stimulate the vitality of market entities. These tools are mainly focused on loans directed at technological innovation, medium large taxpaying enterprises and consumer industry. By using these tools, the district can effectively support enterprises in the consumer industry or those innovation-driven enterprises.

Currently, eight enterprises have applied for technology innovation loans totaling 63 million yuan, while loans for medium and large enterprises and consumer industry have provided guarantees of 422 million yuan to 41 enterprises.

Meanwhile, the establishment of two special funds promotes scientific and technological innovation and supports the launching of new enterprises, as well as boosting employment of college students and attracting new talent.

One of the funds is the district-level Siming Science and Technology Innovation Fund.

With advantages such as specialization, excellence, uniqueness and sustainability, it supports early-stage technological innovation enterprises.

The other is called the Xiamen University-Siming Liucai Fund, a joint initiative by the district and Xiamen University to encourage entrepreneurship and boost talent reserves.

Through all these efforts, the district's industry-guiding funds and their affiliated subsidiary funds have yielded impressive investment results.

Industry-guiding funds have invested in 15 subsidiary funds totaling 53.87 billion yuan.

The district's industry-guiding funds and their subsidiary funds have collectively invested in 402 entities, including 47 local ones.

The combined valuation of these entities is approximately 106.82 billion yuan. Additionally, 21 projects, including Homeland Interactive, have gone public.

Since the beginning of this year, 87 out of a total of 197 key financial investment projects in Siming, including Centurium Capital, have established cooperation projects in the district.

Meanwhile, the Siming Demonstration Area event of the Third Forum of Maritime Silk Road Central Legal District kicked off on Thursday, with a total of 12 projects participating.

Aimed at assisting the evolution of the Maritime Silk Road Central Legal District Siming Demonstration Area into a globally competitive legal hub, the event's participating projects included: Maritime Silk Road Judicial Big Data Joint Innovation Laboratory; the Maritime Silk Road Smart Forensic Evidence Engineering Joint Innovation Laboratory; Xiamen Financial Judicial Collaboration Center; 21st Century Maritime Silk Road International Maritime Dispute Mediation and Coordination Center; the Third Oceanographic Institute Judicial Appraisal Center of the Ministry of Natural Resources; and the Xiamen Local Financial Dispute Mediation Center.

A staff member said the unveiling of the projects signified both the maturation of the Maritime Silk Road Central Legal District and Siming Demonstration Zone's gathering platform construction and the growing influence of legal services and the aggregation of the legal industry, empowering them to create an internationally competitive legal hub.

One of the highlights of the signed projects is legal tech. Li Pei, executive director of the Maritime Silk Road Law Research (Xiamen) Big Data Joint Innovation Laboratory Company, said: "We focus on three major functions: collaborative research and development, innovative application and technological experimentation with the goal of fostering technology companies specializing in legal innovation and social governance within Xiamen and Siming district."

The company's projects involve extensive collaboration in the field of smart legal technology and focuses on the development and manufacturing of intelligent physical evidence equipment, and research into physical evidence big data and artificial intelligence technologies.

The Maritime Silk Road Central Legal District Siming Demonstration Area, established in November 2021, has attracted significant talent and resources in six key areas of legal services for headquarters, administration, intelligence, finance, collaboration and fund-related legal services, with a focus on nurturing the industries of lawyers, notaries, arbitration and judicial authentication.

The initiative has led to the concentration of legal resources, and has already attracted 60 legal and intellectual property institutions in the area.