File photo: VCG

China Development Bank (CDB), a development financial institution, issued its first sustainable development-themed green finance bond under the Bond Connect program to global investors Tuesday.

The raised funds will go to green projects that support the protection of the Yangtze River and green development, such as Chongqing Municipality's forestry ecological construction project and the national reserve forest project.

It is CDB's first green finance bond issued in 2019, with no more than 10 billion yuan (about 1.43 billion U.S. dollars) as the amount of issuance.

With a three-year maturity and a fixed interest rate at 3.1 percent, the bond will be issued through the domestic interbank bond market and the Bond Connect program, a market access scheme allowing overseas investors to invest in the Chinese mainland's interbank bond market using financial institutions of the mainland and Hong Kong.

Since the CDB started to innovate its green finance service in 2017, the bank has issued a number of green finance bonds for purposes including the prevention and control of air pollution, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development, the green and circular development, the preservation of the water resources of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area clean transportation project, with a combined amount of 25 billion yuan.

By the end of September, the CDB had extended loans accumulating to 305.3 billion yuan for Yangtze River protection and green development.