Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China launches inaugural Sovereign Green Bonds Issuance
Today, the London Stock Exchange welcomes the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China (“MOF”) as it successfully launched its RMB 6 billion green bonds of 3-year and 5-year maturity, to be admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s International Securities Market. This milestone marks a significant step in the RMB internationalisation and demonstrates the People’s Republic of China’s (“China”) commitment to support green and sustainable development.
Since 2013, China has recognized the critical role of Ecological Civilization in national governance, integrating it into its Five-Sphere Integrated Plan, which comprehensively covers economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization construction, aiming to promote the all-round development of the country. China has proposed a new development philosophy of “innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development”. In September 2020, China announced its commitment to scale up its Nationally Determined Contributions by adopting more robust policies and measures. China aims to achieve carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.
These green bonds are issued under the People’s Republic of China Sovereign Green Bond Framework (“Framework”), which was released in February 2025. The Framework serves as the foundation for the issuance of international sovereign green bonds of MOF. Through this Framework, China aims to diversify the global green bonds market, encouraging more domestic issuers to participate, and attracting further investment in the green financial markets. This marks the first time that China has built a sovereign green bond framework, which has been assessed by both Chinese and international Second Party Opinion providers. The Framework is developed and structured in accordance with the China Green Bond Principles (2022 Edition) 2 issued by the Green Bond Standard Committee, and the Green Bond Principles (2021 Edition) (with June 2022 Appendix 1) issued by the International Capital Markets Association (“ICMA”).
For this RMB sovereign green bond issuance, the Joint Lead Managers and Joint Bookrunners are Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Barclays, China International Capital Corporation, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, ICBC, and Standard Chartered Bank. Crédit Agricole CIB and Bank of China acted as Green Structuring Advisors.
