Nanning issues policies to support China-ASEAN AI industry center

Nanning City, in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on Friday launched a series of policies to support the development of a China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Cooperation Center.

The first batch of policies consists of 22 articles, applicable to AI companies that settle in the center from March 1, 2025, and will be valid until Dec 31, 2027.

The new policies will provide enterprises and teams that settle in the center with free office space for no less than two years, with a maximum of 15 square meters per person and a maximum cumulative space of 500 square meters, as well as a startup capital subsidy of up to 5 million yuan (over 680,000 U.S. dollars). Up to 50 million yuan (about 5.84 million U.S. dollars) will be issued each year to support model research and development, and up to 5 million yuan of support will be provided for projects seeking breakthroughs in key core technologies.

The new policy focuses on supporting the construction of intelligent computing centers with a scale of more than 100PFlops.

Newly recruited high-end sci-tech talents in the technology-based AI enterprises above the designated size will be given salary rewards at a rate of up to 10 percent of their after-tax salary.

"We will increase financial and taxation support, and push forward tax reductions and exemptions for the center. For enterprises that meet the current relevant tax preferential policies such as the China-ASEAN Industrial Cooperation Zone, we will provide support for the local share part of corporate income tax under the policy of 'five-year exemptions and five-year reductions'. We will also establish an artificial intelligence industry fund with a total scale of 5 billion yuan (about 683.6 million U.S. dollars), focusing on supporting early-stage and growing AI companies and projects," Zhong Hong, executive vice mayor of Nanning City, said at a press conference on Friday.

The "five-year exemptions and five-year reductions" policy means that enterprises or projects under government support are exempt from corporate income tax from the first to the fifth year of its operation, and the tax is levied at half the statutory tax rate from the sixth to the tenth year.

South Korea's central bank raised its policy rate by 25 basis points on Thursday.

Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Shin Hyun-song and other monetary policymakers decided to increase the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate to 2.75 percent from 2.50 percent.

The rate increase, which was in line with market expectations, marked the BOK's first shift back toward monetary tightening since January 2023.

According to the Korea Financial Investment Association's poll of 100 fixed-income experts, 66 percent predicted the rate hike this month.

The central bank has cut its key rate by a quarter percentage point in October and November of 2024, and in February and May of 2025, before making a rate freeze decision for an eighth consecutive time through May this year.