OREANDA-NEWS. March 30, 2011. Since its joint-stock reform, Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC) has laid more stress on banking business for SMEs and granted more credit to SMEs. With new loans reaching record high in 2010, expanding the SME banking business has been an important measure for ABC to implement its "Blue Ocean" Strategy, reported the press-centre of ABC.

As of the end of 2010, ABC's SME customers reached 63,485 and small-sized enterprises were 39,965, with an increase of 2,076 and 2,338 respectively compared with the beginning of 2010; SME loan balance increased by 22.3% to over RMB 1.9 trillion, and that of small-sized enterprises increased by 22.38% to RMB 461.1 billion. It becomes ABC`s another "Blue Ocean" following the county-level banking service.

In 2010 ABC`s SME business maintained a sound, rapid and sustainable growth, with loan quality continuously improving and decrease of both NPL balance and NPL ratio. ABC is planning to become a domestically largest and uniquely advantageous bank in term of SME loans by 2017, with its core performance indices and risk control ability catching up with its advanced international counterparts.

ABC launched two featured competitive products, namely, Simple and Quick Loan and Smart Loan. Simple and Quick Loan adopts the flexible mode of credit granting and rating, and realizes the integration of credit rating, credit granting and credit using, in order to simplify business process and significantly improve the reviewing and approval efficiency. At the fourth China SME Festival, ABC won the Best SME Service Institution and ABC's Simple and Quick loan for small-sized enterprises was awarded "Best SME Service Product".

While granting more credit to SMEs, ABC has been proactively expanding direct financing channels for SMEs. In 2011, ABC Ningbo Branch will work with the local government to raise funds by issuing collection notes, which will be used for the development of local hi-tech SMEs.