According to local outlet JS China, on February 1, senior Communist Party officials from the city of Suzhou attended an annual meeting on the testing of the central bank yuan digital currency (e-CNY CBDC). As part of the results of the meeting, party officials have set an interim KPI of 2 trillion CNY ($300 billion) for CBDC e-CNY transactions in the city by the end of 2023, to be implemented by municipal administrators through promotional efforts.
Officials have also set a goal of processing $30 billion in e-CNY loans for small and medium-sized businesses in Suzhou by the end of the year. In 2022, e-CNY transactions in the city exceeded 340 billion CNY ($50.5 billion) at 930,000 local businesses and government offices, with more than 30.54 million digital wallet downloads. The total financial incentives related to e-CNY amounted to CNY 40 billion (USD 5.9 billion), while e-CNY 18.7 billion (USD 2.78 billion) were issued.
Concurrent with the e-CNY KPIs, local administrators must oversee the development of at least 1,000 companies in the digital fintech sector within Suzhou specializing in artificial intelligence, data, cloud computing, blockchain, and learning automatic by 2025, compared to the current 371. A translated excerpt from the Suzhou city plan reads:
“By 2025, the People’s Bank of China’s digital asset data monitoring platform, blockchain-powered finance and commodity exchange, IoT payment solution, and fintech lab will have produced tangible results. This would incentivize the development of the digital finance ecosystem and would synergize well with the existing financial sector within the city of Suzhou.”
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