On June 24th, 2021, the local authorities in Shenzhen, capital of China's Guangdong Province, released a document detailing some financial grants made available to local e-commerce retailers (hereafter, 'Document').

The Document listed four main criteria to qualify a firm as eligible for a grant:

• Firms that have received CNY 200m (USD 30.9m) or more through investment or stock exchange listing and have seen income increase by 30% in the last three years;
• Firms that are on the 'Nation's Top 100 Internet Companies' list or are designated by the government as a national e-commerce model firm (aka 'Demonstration Enterprise');
• Firm is on the 'List of Chinese Unicorns' distributed by the Ministry of Science and Technology;
• Firm's income from sales of self-made goods exceeds CNY 1bn (154m) and has seen a growth rate of 30%+ in the last three years.

Five types of grant will be available:

• Equal contributions of investment from private investors, up to 1% of total investment, up to CNY 5m (USD 772,000) per year for five years;
• 50% subsidy for rented office space if the company does not own any of its own space, up to CNY 2m (USD 309,000) per year for five years;
• 30% of R&D costs, up to CNY 3m (USD 463,000) per year, no time limit provided;
• One-off prizes for firms that attain sales revenue milestones of CNY 20bn, 10bn and 5bn (USD 3.09bn, 1.54bn and 772m) of CNY 10m, 8m and 3m (USD 1.54m, 1.23m and 463,000) respectively.

An additional funding mechanism was also listed in the Document, this is recorded as a separate intervention under GTA taxonomy.

Up to two of the above instruments may be used by a firm concurrently, depending on several other, more detailed provisions contianed in the Document on how exactly to qualify for the funding, please refer to the original source for more details.

The support programmes detailed in the Document were stated to be available from July 1st, 2021, to October 25th, 2025.