China's First Carbon-Neutral Bonds Issued

China Huaneng Group Co., Ltd. (China Huaneng) issued a batch of carbon-neutral bonds for carbon-neutral green enterprises on Feb 25, becoming one of the first enterprises to issue such bonds in the Chinese exchange market.

Valued at 2 billion yuan ($309.4 million), the bonds have a term of two years and a coupon rate of 3.35 percent.

According to the company, the carbon-neutral bonds are a kind of green bond and funds raised will be mainly used in construction, operation, purchases and credit repayments of green industrial projects that are proved to effectively reduce carbon emissions.

China Huaneng set a new goal of becoming a world-leading modern clean energy enterprise in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25). It aims to increase new energy-based installed capacity by more than 80 million kilowatts and reduce carbon emission intensity by 20 percent by 2025.

The company recently launched a special research institute for carbon neutrality, China's first central state-owned enterprise in the power field to do so, taking the lead in research and strategic distribution of peaking carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality.

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)