Hong Kong Economic Herald:
Mr. Zhu just mentioned increasing support for private, small and micro businesses in renewing loans, which is also the "last mile" in solving the financing difficulties faced by small and micro businesses. What measures have been taken to help private, small and micro businesses get first-time loans? This is also the "first mile" in helping them tackle financing difficulties.
Zhu Shumin:
The first-time loan is a bit more demanding than the renewal loan. In this area, all banks attach great importance to the first-time loan business. Some media outlets may have noticed that, under the guidance of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Banking Association has advocated the nation's banks and financial institutions to launch a special financing campaign --"Hundreds of banks go into tens of thousands of enterprises". This was fully implemented nationwide last November. At the early stage, we had 5 provinces and municipalities carry out pilot trials and they achieved very good results. Next, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission will guide the China Banking Association to advocate the improvement of banking services across the country. Based on the basic accounts opened by small and micro enterprises, a one-to-one docking mechanism will be established to allow banks to change their operations from that of being a "zuo shang" ("sedentary merchant") to "xing shang" ("itinerant trader") and conduct in-depth studies on the financing needs of small and micro enterprises. Voluntary docking on the basis of the full exchange of information between banks and enterprises will help realize a positive interaction between banks and enterprises. Preliminary statistics show that nearly 8 million small and micro enterprises operating normally and paying taxes have been included in the financing campaign. This data is mainly given to us by the tax bureaus. We will continue to look at enterprises' financing situation according to their tax records. If there are tax records but no bank loans, we will provide relevant information to the bank where the company has opened a basic account, and this bank will go to the enterprise to learn about its financing needs and offer services.. In fact, this is what you just mentioned -- the release of the first loan. At present, the majority of banks are taking the initiative to go to the enterprises and provide their services and carry out docking. This work is expected to be completed by the end of April this year. The campaign is carried out across the whole country, and is a very popular project that is welcomed both by the government as well as enterprises.
