All these measures are designed to ensure that the balance of loans extended to MSEs by the five state-owned commercial banks, namely, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of Communications, will increase by over 30 percent this year, and the overall financing cost for MSEs will be trimmed by another one percentage point over last year.
"We must resolutely bring down the financing cost for MSEs. This is a crucial task in promoting economic development as it helps lift employment and contributes to the healthy and steady growth of private companies," Li said.
Attendants at the meeting decided to use government-backed financing guarantee to lower the financing fees for enterprises. The central government will continue to allocate funds under public finance to incentivize reductions in the guarantee fees of MSE financing. The State Financing Guarantee Fund will support no less than 200 billion yuan (29.81 billion U.S. dollars) of guaranteed loans to at least 100,000 MSEs this year.
The goal of capping the guarantee rate at one percent for MSEs with a guarantee volume of five million yuan or below, and 1.5 percent for those with a volume above five million yuan, must be achieved across the country at an early date.
It was also decided at the meeting that the government should further guide banks in raising the share of credit-based loans and reduce dependence on collateral guarantee. More efforts will be made to overhaul the intermediary fees, including surcharges for collateral registration, asset evaluation and bridge loans, to ease the financing burden on businesses.
Competent departments are required to conduct inter-agency inspections on unjustified and arbitrary charges in corporate financing to ease the burden on enterprises.
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