COSCO Shipping Leasing Co., Ltd.：Leasing service promotes the balanced development of education

Company profile
 
COSCO Shipping Leasing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as COSCO Leasing) was founded in 2013 with a registered capital of 1.5 billion yuan. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited. In July 2014, it became one of members in the 12^th batch internal financing and leasing pilot enterprises approved by the Ministry of Commerce and State Administration of Taxation.
 
Since its inception, COSCO Leasing has been adhering to corporate culture of “unity and cooperation for good operation” and set “to build first-class team, first-class business and become a competitive company in the leasing industry” as the goal and dedicated to promote the rapid growth of entity industry and develop national education and medical career. The company makes innovation and explores the business model to combine industry and financing, aiming to provide more flexible financing and leasing solutions and realizing the common growth of the company, shareholders, employees and customers.
 
Challenges
 
In the transformation period of China's economy, the gap between rich and poor, and gap between urban and rural development is still a problem likely to long be with us. Accordingly, the gap between school standards and education quality in different regions, and between urban and rural areas also exists, and the education resource allocation is unbalanced. In addition, some special groups, such as deaf-mute children, have difficulties to receive education. According to the China Education Development Report (2016), there is obvious difference between schools in compulsory education phase; the satisfaction on the balanced development of compulsory education is in average state, but satisfaction on balanced education is different between different regions. To improve the education and infrastructure conditions in less developed areas, reduce the education gap between regions and promote the balanced development of China's compulsory education is a common problem facing by the society.
 
For COSCO Leasing, financing and leasing business in education needs rapid development. How to meet the diversified demand of different schools, explore financing and leasing business model suitable for education and fully tap the market potential, has become the urgent problem to be solved by the company.
 
Solutions
 
COSCO Leasing actively gives full play of its business advantage and cooperates with the government to provide funds for equipment purchase and construction for the schools in areas with low educational level by means of financing and leasing, and has promoted the infrastructure construction and improved the teaching conditions; meanwhile, the company is also concerned with the conditions of running special schools and provide flexible solutions in financial and leasing, guaranteeing the right of special group to receive compulsory education. COSCO Leasing also offers flexible financing and leasing conditions for school according to the actual situations and provides customized financial and leasing plans, expanding the scope of services for schools.
 
Focus on areas with low educational level
 
Based on large amounts of data analysis and field research, COSCO Leasing takes low educational level areas, such as rural areas, remote poverty-stricken areas and ethnic areas of as key regions to launch educational programs and identifies different needs of these areas in the building and development of primary and middle schools. Then, the company established sound cooperative relations with government like educational institutions at different levels, and provided diversified financing and leasing plans covering teaching facilities, infrastructure construction and short-term financial needs through the platform provided by the government to assist primary and middle schools in infrastructure construction and to enhance their conditions of running schools.
 
Faku county, the only outskirt county of Shenyang city failing to complete the construction of nine-year compulsory schools in all villages and towns, integrated existing resources systematically and built the East Lake middle school town, despite of the imbalances in conditions of running schools, faculties and students, as well as the teaching quality. After learning the construction needs of the school town, the company raised RMB 120 million to help these schools to construct infrastructure, including multi-media teaching systems, teaching buildings, dormitory buildings, laboratory buildings, libraries and gymnastics, so as to improve the schools’ infrastructure construction level.
 
Concern special education schools
 
COSCO Leasing is also concerned with the conditions of running special schools. The company learned the needs of special schools carefully and increased the strength of financing and leasing for special schools, like those for the children of peasant workers and deaf-mute children. It provided flexible financing and leasing plans for special education schools, which has helped special groups to enjoy the excellent education resources, ensured their rights of receiving compulsory education equally, and narrowed the gaps between groups in compulsory education.
 
The special education school in Yancheng city in Jiangsu province is a special education base integrating speech training for deaf children, deaf children’s education and intellectual development education, which owns 13 teaching classes, 9 for deaf children and 4 for intellectual development, and 129 students. During the development of the school, students’ needs for teaching facilities for gym and culture increase gradually. COSCO Leasing provided the school with financing and leasing schemes, supporting the school’s gymnastic and cultural facilities construction to meet special groups’ need for education resources.
 
Provide customized financing and leasing solutions for schools
 
Targeted the education project and according to the actual needs of the schools, COSCO Leasing provided customized, reasonable and flexible financing and leasing schemes for schools after the company learned the schools’ financial situation, facilitating  schools to choose proper scheme according to their own actual situation ,and optimize cash flow, avoiding the financial pressure in phases and other links. COSCO Leasing can provide five-year financing for the schools so as to reduce the pressure of repayment and financial burden for the schools.
 
Achievements
 
Social benefit
 
COSCO Leasing has promoted the balanced development of education. With an emphasis on the financing and leasing needs in schools in rural areas, remote poverty-stricken areas and ethnic areas, the company has supported schools to equip facilities, books and schoolhouses reasonably, which facilitates the balanced allocation of education resources contributes to narrowing the education gaps between rural and urban regions. In 2015, programs launched by COSCO Leasing benefited 300,000 students and guaranteed more students access to education resources of high quality. While providing financing and leasing solutions for East lake primary and middle school town, the company upgraded the integral educational infrastructure construction level in Faku county and made Faku county one of counties characterized by high-level and balanced compulsory education in Liaoning province.
 
Economic benefit
 
The company has greatly promoted the company’s educational business development as well as the development of leasing industry. It has its focus on educational under-developed districts and special schools and provided schools with customized financing and leasing solutions to meet the plural needs of schools, which enlarges its area of service. In 2015, the company invested RMB 1.69 billion in more than 20 educational programs, with a non-performing assets ratio of zero. While providing services for many schools, the company has built a financing and leasing service mode suitable for the field of education, which can be used for reference by other leasing enterprises, thus promoting the development of leasing industry to some extent.
 
Prospect
 
As an important industry to serve the real economy development, financing and leasing can provide funds in many fields such as education, and contribute to the improvement of the people's livelihood. COSCO Leasing will continue to serve the schools, explore, and develop PPP (Public - private Partnership) project, and work with the society to solve the problem of education balance and boost the development of balanced Chinese education and education career progress.