OREANDA-NEWS. November 14, 2011. The third annual meeting of Financial Service Alliance for China Medium and Small Enterprises was held in Hangzhou Zhejiang. Mr. Guo Haoda, Vice President of Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC) stated at the meeting that, to implement the nine financial and fiscal policies supporting the small and micro enterprises(SMEs) enacted by the State Council, ABC had formulated a series of policies and measures to support the SMEs by granting more loans, reducing their funding costs and further enhancing financial services for them, reported the press-centre of ABC.

As for the specific measures, Mr. Guo Haoda pointed out that ABC would strengthen its support for the SMEs in the following three aspects. First, to grant more loans so as to satisfy their reasonable funding need. In the remaining two months this year, ABC will keep granting more loans to small and micro enterprises. It is predicted that ABC will have increased its loans to small and micro enterprises by over RMB100 billion during 2011, to achieve a loan increase no smaller than last year and an increase rate no lower than that of overall loans. Second, to regulate the management of interest rate and charges so as to tangibly reduce the funding costs of the SMEs. Fully considering the affordability as well as production and operation status of those SMEs, ABC will fix reasonable prices and surrender part of its profits, with the maximum loan interest rate not exceeding 130% of the benchmark rate.

Any unreasonable charges are strictly prohibited. No loan commitment charge, fund management charge and consulting fee for the SMEs. No financial consulting fee will be charged for micro enterprises. No wealth management, insurance or fund products shall be hard sold together with loans. Third, to enhance financial services for the SMEs by improving institution building and business process, accelerating the promotion and innovation of financial products, and opening up new funding channels for SMEs, so as to improve the service level for the SMEs. Giving full play to its strengths of numerous outlets and extensive coverage, ABC will enhance its branches, grassroots outlets and specialized institutions' service ability for SMEs so as to provide the nearest services for them.

According to Mr. Guo Haoda, as at the end of this September, ABC had provided financial services for over 2.50 million small and medium enterprises and granted credit to 67,000 such enterprises, including 43,000 small ones, which made small and medium enterprises account for 92% of the whole bank’s corporate credit customers. Loan balance of the SMEs exceeded RMB2.1 trillion, up RMB160.0 billion over the beginning of the year, in which loan balance of small enterprises exceeded RMB540.0 billion, an increase of RMB85.0 billion over the beginning of the year. The increase rate of small enterprise loans was 8 percentage points higher than that of all loans of ABC, fulfilling CBRC’s requirement.

Mr. Guo Haoda stated that, against the current complicated economic and financial backdrop, the state had, with high expectation, imposed new requirements for financial institutions on improving the financial services for SMEs. ABC promises to shoulder its responsibility as a large bank and join hands with the small and medium enterprises to overcome difficulties.