YICAI｜Shanghai Stock Exchange’s First Batch of Sci-Tech Innovation Bond ETFs Listed Today, Marking a New Phase in Supporting “Hard Technology” Development

Translated from Yicai

On July 17, the first batch of Sci-Tech Innovation Bond ETFs was listed. This marks not only a significant expansion of the ETF product lineup but also the official entry of the domestic bond ETF market into a new phase of supporting the development of “hard technology”. It opens new avenues for the deep integration of technology, industry, and finance and is a crucial move for capital markets to focus on facilitating technological innovation and the growth of new quality productive forces. This will help foster a virtuous cycle of “technological breakthroughs - industrial upgrades - financial empowerment”.

On their first day of trading, six Sci-Tech Innovation Bond ETFs listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) (from Huaxia, Penghua, China Merchants, E Fund, Bosera, and GF) saw high trading activity, with a total turnover exceeding RMB 44 billion. Market experts pointed out that the launch of the Sci-Tech Innovation Bond ETFs serves three key purposes: Firstly, it focuses on supporting national strategies, promoting financial resources towards strategic emerging industries, and providing robust support for the conversion of technological achievements and industrial structural upgrades, driving the development of new quality productive forces. Secondly, it caters to wealth management needs by combining technological innovation attributes, high credit quality, and index-based management, allowing investors to easily share in the growth dividends of technology-based innovation enterprises. Thirdly, it helps improve liquidity and pricing efficiency in the sci-tech innovation bond market, further strengthening the positive momentum of equity-debt linkage in supporting technological innovation.

In recent years, as index-based investing has gained broad acceptance, bond ETFs, known for their low risk, stable returns, low transaction costs, high trading efficiency, and transparency, have garnered increasing attention and favor from investors. The market size has steadily expanded.