The county-level city of Hai'an – administered by Nantong city in East China's Jiangsu province – is continuing to increase efforts to protect intellectual property rights, or IPRs, of resident enterprises to provide a great environment for local business.

It's an initiative it has been implementing in recent years and what's more, the city is committed to helping the companies transform their IPRs into real assets, to further boost their competitiveness.

In 2021, Hai'an firms received 86 loans through IP mortgages and the value of those loans reached 427 million yuan ($67 million), hitting a new high.

One of them is Jiangsu Tianli Electromechanical Co Ltd, located in the Hai'an High-tech Industrial Development Zone. It is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the research, development and production of transformers and complete sets of related equipment. It boasts five invention patents and 15 patents for utility models.

Tianli has faced greater operating pressures due to reduced business income and tight working funds brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. After hearing about its plight, the Hai'an market supervision bureau immediately got in contact with a local bank for it to provide online pledge financing to the struggling company.

On March 18, Tianli received a loan of 7 million yuan issued by the Hai'an sub-branch of the Postal Savings Bank of China. "It is unexpected that patents can be used for a pledge and the interest is so low, which really solves our matter of extreme urgency," said Tianli senior executive Chen Kai.

In the first two months of the current year, there have been 11 IP pledge financing loans in Hai'an, with a value of 51.46 million yuan – a development seen as marking big progress.