Impact investing, a form of socially responsible investment that tries to benefit society or the environment while pursuing financial return, is in line with China's new vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and inclusive development. It can play a key role as the focus of China's economic growth shifts from high speed to high quality.

Technological revolution, financial innovation and the globalization of the capital market have promoted economic development worldwide, with global wealth witnessing exponential growth in the past 20 years. Still, poverty, hunger and problems in many fields such as education and health continue to pose grave challenges.

Against this backdrop, in 2015, the UN member countries adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, committing to meet a set of 17 time-bound goals that range from ending extreme poverty and fighting inequality and injustice to ensuring peaceful and inclusive societies by 2030.

However, emerging markets face a financing gap of $3.9 trillion per year to meet the goals set out in the agenda. Since governmental inputs and the funds raised by nongovernmental organizations are both inadequate to meet the financing needs, impact investing can play a complementary role.

The barriers to progress in sustainable development will be overcome when economic activities are undertaken for both financial profit and positive social influence. CD Finance, a microfinance provider that has helped millions of Chinese farmers out of poverty, is an example of what impact investment can do. CD Finance's stakeholders include leading financial institutions such as Ant Financial and Sequoia Capital.

The practice of incorporating public interest into business models is gaining traction. Impact investing has seen rapid development across the globe, soaring from only $10 billion in 2014 to over $500 billion this year.

In line with China's development vision, impact investing can promote innovations in public welfare and finance and produce balanced results with both profit and social influence. It can also promote foreign investment, boost green finance and help disadvantaged groups share the fruits of development.

It can play a key role in China's economic transformation. Since inadequate supply of public goods, especially in elderly care, education and medical care, remains a prominent social problem, traditional approaches can be combined with impact investing to create new solutions.

In China, institutionalized care for the elderly is still inadequate. Impact investing can play a useful role to address this deficiency. In the past decade, the Lvkang Geriatric Rehabilitation Hospital in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in east China, had only 500 beds and inadequate funds. But with investment from a Shanghai-based impact investing organization, the hospital increased the number of beds to 10,000 in three years. Though its charges are low, the hospital still makes a profit thanks to the preferential policies of the government, which help reduce costs.

Langli, another elderly care home in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in southwest China, provides smart elderly care services for local households by using technology. It received impact investment for half a year from Yifang Foundation, a private foundation supporting non-profit organizations, resulting in the number of its clients quadrupling.

Glory Solar, headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in south China, is a social enterprise that sold its first solar energy facility in 2007. Since then it has sold its environment-friendly products in 62 countries, helping reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 21 million tons.

With impact investing, social problems can be turned into business opportunities. By developing into a major impact investing market, China can make important contributions to global sustainable growth.

This is an edited excerpt of the speech by Ma Weihua, former President of China Merchants Bank and Chairman of China Global Philanthropy Institute, at the Harvard College China Forum 2019 in Boston, the U.S.,on April 13

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

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