Dr. Ma Jun - Founder and President of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability (IFS) and Chairman of the Capacity-building Alliance of Sustainable Investment (CASI), was recently interviewed by Simon Mundy of the Financial Times (Moral Money) on how China's leadership in green technology could support the internationalisation of the renminbi, while helping to accelerate the global energy transition. The interview was featured in the FT's Moral Money newsletter on 1 July 2026.
A new phase for China’s green finance
Dr. Ma observed that China’s green finance journey is entering a new phase. The next phase, he suggested, will see fast-growing developing countries increasingly turning to China’s capital markets to fund their own low-carbon investments. Awareness of this opportunity among developing economies, he noted, is only just beginning to grow.
Growing momentum in the panda bond market
A clear illustration of this trend is the rapid growth of the panda bond market, renminbi-denominated instruments issued in mainland China by foreign issuers. Dr. Ma highlighted Pakistan’s maiden RMB 1.75 billion (USD 258 million) panda bond, issued in June 2026 with proceeds reserved for green and social investments. Supported by guarantees from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the three-year bond achieved a coupon of just 2.5 per cent, significantly lower than the 6.975 per cent Pakistan paid on a comparable three-year dollar-denominated issuance in April. Brazil has since announced plans for its own inaugural panda bond to fund strategic investments in sustainable development.
Panda bond issuance reached RMB 136 billion in the first five months of 2026, an increase of 90 per cent year on year. With Chinese benchmark interest rates well below US Treasury yields, Dr. Ma noted that renminbi funding offers developing economies a meaningfully lower-cost channel for sustainable investment.
Beyond the cost of capital
Dr. Ma also emphasised that finance is only one part of what China can offer. Engagement with China brings access not only to competitive financing, but also to affordable low-carbon technologies and the corporate capability to deliver projects successfully. In many cases, he suggested, these factors matter even more to a project’s success than a few percentage points of financing cost.
Reflecting on China’s long history of engagement with developing economies, dating back well before its own economic boom – Dr. Ma observed that today’s South-South cooperation is increasingly underpinned by economics rather than goodwill alone, resting on a genuinely competitive proposition of finance, technology and delivery capability.
The full article, “How China’s green tech could boost its global finance ambitions”, is available on the Financial Times website: https://www.ft.com/content/89813dec-8b83-40cf-aec4-fb2b3134ca5e?syn-25a6b1a6=1
About CASI: The Capacity-building Alliance of Sustainable Investment (CASI) is a global platform launched at COP28 to strengthen sustainable finance capacity in emerging markets and developing economies, with the goal of empowering 100,000 financial professionals by 2030.