(Yicai) March 7 -- The National Social Security Fund, one of China’s sovereign wealth funds, has recently set up an industrial investment fund with a size of CNY5.1 billion (USD708.5 million) in Shenzhen to accelerate the cultivation of science and technology innovation enterprises in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The National Council for Social Security Fund, the manager of the National Social Security Fund, is investing CNY5 billion (USD694 million) in the industrial investment fund, and Shenzhen Capital Group, an investment arm of the local government, will invest CNY100 million and manage the fund, financial news outlet The Paper reported today.

The fund will mainly invest in industries with advantages in the Greater Bay Area, including new-generation information technologies, high-end equipment manufacturing, biomedicine, new materials, and new energy, the report said. It will identify and nurture high-quality businesses at the startup and growth stages to help them realize innovation and transformation.

In September 2022, the NCSSF said it will set up industrial investment funds in three core regions, namely Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, to serve scientific and technological innovation and the development of the real economy.

Two of those funds were already set up last year. The Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Special Fund was formed in Beijing in July 2023 with an initial size of CNY5 billion and the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Fund was set up in Shanghai last November with a size of CNY5.1 billion.

Founded in 2000, the National Social Security Fund had assets of CNY2.9 trillion (USD402.9 billion) as of the end of 2022, according to its annual report released last September. It has achieved an average annual investment yield of 7.7 percent since its inception and a cumulative investment return of CNY1.7 trillion.

Editor: Kim Taylor