On January 7, 2025, the Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting the High Quality Development of Government Investment Funds (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions") were officially issued, which set the development direction of "marketization, legalization, and professionalization" for China's government investment funds. One year later, as key supporting measures of the "1+N" policy system of the "Guiding Opinions", the "Working Measures on Strengthening the Planning and Guidance of Government Investment Fund Layout and Investment Direction (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Working Measures") and the "Management Measures for Evaluation of Government Investment Fund Investment Direction (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Management Measures") were officially announced to the public on January 12 this year. The release of two documents, one "regulation" and one "evaluation", has not only drawn a precise layout and investment "roadmap" for government investment funds, but also constructed a scientific investment evaluation "baton" for them, promoting the further refinement of management of government investment funds in China. Many industry experts believe that government investment funds, as an important carrier for guiding the combination of fiscal funds and social capital, play a key supporting role in serving national strategies, optimizing resource allocation, and empowering industrial upgrading. With the continuous improvement of the "1+N" policy system, government investment funds are expected to more accurately anchor core directions such as hard technology and the cultivation of new quality productivity, leverage social capital to form synergies, and better leverage the strategic guidance value of fiscal funds. The attribute of 'patient capital' has been further strengthened. In the year since the issuance of the Guiding Opinions, many places such as Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, and Shanghai have successively released policy measures related to the high-quality development of government investment funds, promoting the implementation and effectiveness of the Guiding Opinions. Driven by top-level design, local government efforts, and optimized funding mechanisms, government funds are steadily entering the market. The Securities Daily reporter learned from the Mother Fund Research Center that by 2025, the subscribed capital of financial and state-owned investment platforms as LPs (limited partners) nationwide will reach 1.03 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.7%. In the past year, the development logic of local government investment funds has also undergone a transformation: from the extensive path of the past to a focus on high-quality development with improved quality and efficiency, mainly reflected in two dimensions: new control and stock optimization. On the one hand, under the policy guidance of strictly controlling the number of newly established funds, the number of locally guided funds has decreased and instead strengthened refined management and market-oriented operations, focusing on improving the efficiency and quality of fund utilization; On the other hand, various regions are strengthening the management of existing funds, consolidating operational efficiency by integrating homogeneous funds and cleaning up inefficient funds. For example, Shanghai has explicitly proposed to encourage fund integration and restructuring based on the principles of "marketization and rule of law" for funds with a large number of similar funds, obvious overlap in investment fields, and unexpected investment situations. Constrained by the red line of the policy of 'strictly controlling the establishment of new fund managers by county-level governments', the extensive investment model of' blooming everywhere 'in the past has been effectively curbed; At the same time, funds are more concentrated towards top institutions and major strategic projects, greatly reducing the phenomenon of blind establishment of small and medium-sized levels. ”Tang Jincao, Chairman of Shuimu Capital and founder of the parent fund research center, said. Complementing the local efforts to control the establishment of new funds and refine existing ones, the activity of national level guidance funds continues to rise. Since the issuance of the Guiding Opinions, multiple national level funds have been successively implemented. For example, in January last year, the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund Partnership Enterprise (Limited Partnership) was established with a capital contribution of up to 60.06 billion yuan; Last March, the National Military Civilian Integration Industry Investment Fund Phase II Limited Liability Company was established with a registered capital of 59.6 billion yuan; At the end of December last year, the National Entrepreneurship Investment Guidance Fund was officially launched and put into operation. On January 20th of this year, Wang Changlin, Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated at a press conference of the State Council Information Office that "we must give full play to the benchmark role of the national venture capital fund industry and study the establishment of a national level merger and acquisition fund." Over the past year, the core attribute of government investment funds as "patient capital" has been further strengthened. Various regions have extended the duration of funds, generally reaching 10 to 20 years; At the same time, fault tolerance and incentive mechanisms are gradually being improved to address the pain points of state-owned assets' reluctance to invest. For example, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other places have issued documents allowing individual projects of seed/angel funds to incur up to 100% losses. Regarding this, Tang Jincao stated that the arrangement of extending the fund's duration to a maximum of 20 years further transforms the positioning of "patient capital" from a policy text to a practical action. Overall, Guo Guobo, founder of Sino Jia Yi (Beijing) International Business Consulting Co., Ltd., believes that since the issuance of the Guiding Opinions, local governments at all levels have actively promoted the optimization of relevant systems, forming a comprehensive policy adjustment trend. The development logic of government investment funds has shifted towards "improving quality and efficiency". In recent years, deep-seated problems in the government investment fund industry have gradually emerged, such as investment concentration entering popular tracks and homogenization in investment fields. Some regions neglect their own resource endowments and technological foundations, blindly chasing industry hotspots. Instead of focusing on core areas such as' bottleneck 'technology, they have caused low-level redundant construction due to homogeneous layout, resulting in waste of fiscal funds and resource mismatch, thereby dispersing capital support for key core technologies, early innovation and other fields, "said Shan Fu, President of Hainan Jungu Academy of Sciences. In order to further optimize the layout of productive forces according to local conditions, the "Work Measures" issued this time not only sorted out the functional positioning and key investment directions of national and local funds, but also creatively established a "List of Key Investment Fields of Provincial Government Investment Funds" system, requiring each region to formulate detailed investment catalogs based on their own endowments and report them. Correspondingly, the "Management Measures" have simultaneously set up a secondary indicator of "key investment field fit", and directly assigned this indicator a score weight of up to 10% to directly assess the degree of matching between fund investments and local lists. This combination of punches requires and motivates local funds to take a differentiated and distinctive development path from the source, which is the fundamental institutional design to break through homogeneous competition. ”Dan Fu said. Tang Jincao also stated that this constraint mechanism centered on quantitative assessment, combined with the guidance of national level funds in strategic layout and the coordinated linkage of local funds, will effectively reverse the local funds' tendency to follow the trend of "focusing on hotspots and neglecting origins"; At the same time, it will also force various regions to focus on resource endowment and industrial foundation, cultivate and refine their advantageous tracks, abandon the impulse of homogeneous expansion, and thus curb low-level redundant construction, allowing fiscal funds to truly concentrate on core areas and advantageous industries. Fault tolerance and exit bottlenecks still need to be overcome. From the perspective of the positioning of government investment funds, their fundamental task is to "focus on major strategies, key areas, and weak links where the market cannot fully play its role, attract and drive more social capital, support the construction of a modern industrial system, and accelerate the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces". In terms of investment direction, we should support technological innovation, focus on investing early, small, long-term, and hard technology. However, "investing early, investing small, investing long-term, and investing in hard technology" itself is to undertake high-risk, long-term investments, inevitably facing higher project failure rates and investment uncertainties. Relying solely on investment guidance is difficult to effectively implement and achieve results. Only by synchronously refining and implementing fault-tolerant incentives and due diligence exemption mechanisms can we truly dispel the worries of fund managers and make "daring to invest, willing to invest, and able to invest" the norm. Since the issuance of the Guiding Opinions, various regions have made breakthroughs in fault-tolerant mechanisms, but from the perspective of implementation, there are still many bottlenecks that urgently need to be solved. For example, the fault tolerance clauses in some regions are still relatively vague, lacking detailed standards and process guidelines; At the same time, the fault tolerance mechanism is not well connected with systems such as disciplinary inspection, auditing, and state-owned asset supervision, which makes government investment fund managers still have concerns in practical operations. Tang Jincao believes that in the future, if special "due diligence exemption" operation guidelines recognized by audit, discipline inspection and supervision departments can be issued, the "fault tolerance" requirements can be implemented from policy provisions to specific audit and verification processes, and the operational boundaries and recognition processes can be clarified, in order to truly dispel the concerns of state-owned asset management personnel and make them dare to invest in early hard technology projects. The Management Measures have provided positive incentives for excellent funds. In the next step, the policy needs to clarify specific fault-tolerant standards and procedures for exploratory and forward-looking investments, distinguish the long-term strategic performance of funds from individual project risks, and effectively alleviate the concerns of management teams. ”Dan Fu said. National Bo also stated that although the industry has abandoned the short-term assessment orientation and turned to a full life cycle combination assessment, the refinement level of the due diligence exemption list is still insufficient. Only by filling this gap can state-owned assets truly let go of their burdens and dare to take action in the early, small, and hard technology investment tracks. If the fault-tolerant mechanism is the driving force for government investment funds to "dare to invest", then a sound and diversified, market-oriented exit channel arrangement is the key to achieving sustainable operation of government investment funds. The difficulty of exiting is still the most prominent pain point in the current industry, and it is also the core direction for future policy efforts. ”Tang Jincao said that he expects regulatory authorities to introduce more substantive measures, focusing on supporting the development of S funds (second-hand share transfer funds) and M&A funds, enriching exit paths outside of IPOs, and solving the problem of relying on a single exit channel. Suggest introducing a more flexible "flexible exit" mechanism, such as using diversified methods such as dividend returns and agreement transfers to replace a single mandatory repurchase. Dan Fu expressed his expectation that regulatory authorities will continue to make efforts in refining and implementing fault tolerance incentives and due diligence exemption mechanisms, improving diversified and market-oriented exit channel arrangements, strengthening data sharing and cross departmental collaborative supervision, dynamically optimizing evaluation systems, and ensuring enforcement rigidity. (New Society)