The reporter recently learned from the Shenzhen Municipal Finance Bureau that the "self audit and spontaneous" reform pilot of Shenzhen's special bonds has been successfully implemented recently. The first round of issuance of new special bonds reached 7.676 billion yuan, with the average interest rate remaining the lowest in the country. The funds are widely invested in areas such as people's livelihood, industry, and new infrastructure. Previously, special bond projects reported by local governments needed to be jointly reviewed and approved by the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission before corresponding bonds could be issued. However, in December last year, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Optimizing and Improving the Management Mechanism of Local Government Special Bonds" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which clearly proposed to carry out a pilot program of "self review and spontaneous" special bond projects. Delegate the authority to review special bond projects, select provinces with good management foundations and regions undertaking major national strategies to carry out pilot projects of "self review and spontaneous" special bond projects, and support economically powerful provinces to play a leading role. According to the Opinion, the pilot areas include Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province (including Ningbo City), Anhui Province, Fujian Province (including Xiamen City), Shandong Province (including Qingdao City), Hunan Province, Guangdong Province (including Shenzhen City), Sichuan Province, and Xiong'an New Area in Hebei Province. The pilot areas will be selected through rolling organization to form a local project list. After being reviewed and approved by the provincial government, it will no longer be submitted to the National Development and Reform Commission or the Ministry of Finance for review. Special bonds can be immediately issued, and the project list will be simultaneously submitted to the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance for filing. The 'self review and spontaneous' mechanism reduces the approval process and will improve the financing efficiency of special bonds in pilot provinces and regions Yang Juan, a senior researcher at the head level of the Bank of China Research Institute, told reporters. Except for Shenzhen, on February 27th of this year, Xiamen successfully issued the first batch of local government special bonds worth 16.615 billion yuan for 2025, marking substantial progress in the "self review and spontaneous" work of special bond projects in Xiamen. It is reported that the 16.615 billion yuan special bonds issued this time cover a total of 64 projects in the fields of industrial park infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, affordable housing projects, social undertakings, new infrastructure, municipal supporting infrastructure, and urban village renovation. In addition, in March, the General Office of the People's Government of Hunan Province issued the "Implementation Plan for the Pilot of 'Self Audit and Spontaneous' Local Government Special Bond Projects in Hunan Province". This is also the first detailed disclosure of the "self review and spontaneous" pilot implementation plan in the pilot areas. Feng Lin, Executive Director of the Research and Development Department of Dongfang Jincheng, stated in an interview with reporters that since the beginning of this year, various regions have successively implemented "self audit and spontaneous" measures, which have improved the efficiency of applying for and reviewing special bond projects. At the same time, "self audit and spontaneous" measures are conducive to pilot provinces independently and flexibly arranging the use of special bond funds, as well as improving the efficiency of special bond issuance and use, driving the pace of special bond issuance to accelerate. Feng Lin believes that with the continuous promotion of the "self audit and spontaneous" reform pilot, coupled with the increasing necessity of current fiscal policies to boost domestic demand, it is expected that the issuance of new special bonds will gradually accelerate from April. The issuance volume in the second quarter is expected to reach about 1.5 trillion yuan, an increase of over 500 billion yuan from the first quarter. (New Society)