(Yicai Global) July 26 -- The Shanghai Data Exchange has signed cooperation agreements with 12 banks and digital economy-related companies to accelerate development of the data market and support the establishment of China’s data transaction alliance.

Seven companies, including Shanghai Lingang Economic Development Group, Shanghai Lianhe Investment, and Shanghai Information Investment, will offer financial support to the exchange, according to a statement the SDE released yesterday.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank, and Bank of Ningbo also will join hands with the SDE to facilitate data sharing and transactions, draw up standards, build a system, explore innovative models for data trading in the financial sector, and create application scenarios to turn data into assets, the exchange said.

ICBC was among the first group of partners to sign a contract with the SDE and it has already completed the first fundraiser through corporate digital-asset certificates, Zhang Wenwu, vice president at the lender, said at the signing ceremony, Shanghai Securities News reported yesterday.

China’s data market was worth CNY54.5 billion (USD8 billion) in 2020, and is expected to exceed CNY174.9 billion (USD26 billion) by 2025, according to the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center. But there is no inter-corporate mechanism for sharing data, meaning the level of data use is low, with more potential value to be tapped.

Shanghai aims to have a CNY3 trillion (USD444 billion) digital economy in three years, the city government said in a document published earlier this month. More than 60 percent of Shanghai’s gross domestic product will likely come from the digital economy by 2025, it said.

Data exchanges have been formed across China in recent years. Shanghai launched the SDE last November to trade data with about 100 debut products in eight fields, including finance, transport, and communications.

Editor: Futura Costaglione