The southwestern city of Guiyang is building itself into the "capital of crowdfunding", said Liu Wenxian, chairman of the Guiyang Crowdfunding Finance Exchange.

"Crowdfunding is not just a financing method, but an innovative business model as well, that can be applied to many fields," he said. Crowdfunding is a way of getting funding for a project or venture through money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.

Since 2012, the funding method has swept the world, becoming increasingly popular.

According to forecasts from the World Bank, by 2025, crowdfunding investment in China is expected to reach $46 billion to $50 billion.

The Guiyang Crowdfunding Finance Exchange was launched in May.

According to Liu, the exchange meets all the demands of innovation and entrepreneurship, business re-engineering and small enterprises. The ultimate goal of the exchange is to become the country's largest listing for crowdfunding enterprises.

Guiyang saw the fastest GDP growth in the country for two years and was recognized as one of top 100 most promising cities by The Economist.

The city is also making efforts to build a unique financial ecosystem.

Although it is in a remote area, Guiyang has already hosted several expos and summits related to big data and finance and is doing its best to build a crowdfunding finance system for exchanges, as well as a business college and institute.

Liu said, "In the future, there may be four or five crowdfunding financial exchanges in China, but the exploration of Guiyang crowdfunding financial exchanges is to be reckoned."

The World Crowdfunding Conference is being held in Guiyang from Friday through Monday.

More than 10,000 enterprises are taking part in its 24 forums, with dozens of crowdfunding finance deals expected to be made.

"The World Crowdfunding Conference is not an academic forum, it will serve project investors, VCs and dealers," said Liu. "We hope more domestic and global crowdfunding platforms will gather in Guiyang".

zengjun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/23/2015 page24)