Recent reports from Rongcheng District indicate that following the successful establishment of the city's first county-level AA-rated state-owned enterprise by the end of 2025, the district has continued to deepen market-oriented reforms for its local SOEs. Efforts are now actively underway to achieve an AA+ credit rating for these enterprises.
Leveraging the core advantage of the AA credit rating, Rongcheng District has achieved multiple breakthroughs in areas such as asset revitalization, smart parking, and ancient town revitalization. The dividends from these reforms are rapidly transforming into developmental momentum, injecting stronger state-owned capital power into high-quality economic and social development.
Credit Enhancement: Overcoming Financing and Transformation Bottlenecks
For a long time, narrow financing channels, weak credit backing, and rigid operational models have been common bottlenecks hindering the development of county-level state-owned enterprises. Rongcheng District has used the creation of an AA credit rating as a breakthrough point to precisely overcome this challenge. With the AA rating, the recognition of the district's SOEs in the capital market has significantly increased, effectively broadening their direct financing channels and freeing them from past reliance on traditional credit with its higher financing costs.
"After obtaining the AA credit rating, recognition in the capital market has greatly improved, directly opening up financing channels," stated a relevant official from the Rongcheng District Finance Bureau. Taking the smart parking project with a total investment of approximately 379 million yuan as an example, it was precisely due to standardized and compliant credit credentials that the enterprise successfully bid for the right to use parking space resources and completed its capital raising, ensuring the smooth implementation of the project.
Furthermore, the successful rating of this platform has set a benchmark for the market-oriented transformation of state-owned enterprises across the district. It breaks away from traditional administrative operational models, exploring a development path of "asset consolidation + credit cultivation + market-oriented operation." This drives district SOEs to improve their governance structures, refine assessment mechanisms, standardize management, and promote a comprehensive transformation towards becoming "market-oriented operating entities."
Project Implementation: Reform Dividends Accelerate Release
Since the establishment of the AA-rated platform, Rongcheng District has accelerated the implementation of a series of key projects related to people's livelihoods, urban quality improvement, and cultural tourism upgrades. In the field of urban smart city construction, Jieyang Rongqi Investment Development Co., Ltd. successfully won the paid use rights for smart parking space resources in Rongcheng District. This project, as a key operational high-quality asset being revitalized across the district, focuses on the integration of parking resources, smart upgrades, and standardized operation. It plans to construct 6,168 smart parking spaces and 501 supporting charging piles, fully adopting a market-oriented, self-operated model.
Upon implementation, the project not only enhances urban management efficiency but has also generated 260 million yuan in revenue from state-owned assets, achieving a win-win in both social and economic benefits.
Additionally, this year the district's state-owned capital platform will further deepen its participation in the revitalization of the ancient town. Jieyang City Construction Investment Co., Ltd. has successfully won the use rights for two parcels of construction land, which will assist in the integration of ancient town cultural tourism resources and business format upgrades. It is reported that, without changing the existing credit rating, the district plans to restructure the ancient town company into a new industrial investment company, aiming to build a bond-issuing platform with an AA+ industrial investment rating as the target.
Simultaneously, efforts continue to upgrade the business formats in areas such as the timber company, Jin Cheng Park, and West Lake Park. Through the expropriation and revitalization of assets from state-owned and collective enterprises, as well as leveraging social capital, the economic vitality of the old city is being fully activated.
Pursuing Higher Rating: Seeking New Breakthroughs in Multiple Areas
Building on the existing foundation, Rongcheng District is addressing shortcomings in three dimensions—assets, revenue, and management—to actively advance the work towards an AA+ rating for its SOEs. It is reported that on the asset side, there will be continuous integration of high-quality operational assets, franchise rights, and equity resources from both district and township levels to continuously expand the asset scale. On the revenue side, relying on mature projects like smart parking, ancient town leasing, and grain storage quality improvement, the aim is to form stable and sustainable operational cash flow, reversing the previous situation of thin revenue. On the management side, efforts will focus on continuously improving corporate governance systems,健全风险防控机制，提升市场化、规范化运营水平。
"After a successful upgrade to AA+, our direct financing channels will become more accessible, and financing costs will be further reduced," the official from the Rongcheng District Finance Bureau stated. At that point, the district's SOEs will possess stronger capabilities for asset acquisition, industrial investment, and participation in urban construction. This will effectively leverage special bonds and social capital, providing more robust state-owned capital support for the preservation and revitalization of the ancient town, infrastructure upgrades, and people's livelihood projects. This will promote coordinated urban-rural regional development and high-quality economic and social development across the district.