OREANDA-NEWS. March 21, 2013. Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC) has announced that in 2013 is the year it will fully unfold “the four urbanization” financing programs--the county-level retail business enhancement program; the “121” program for major county sub-branches; the financial “Thousands” program for rural industries; and the “Kins Farmer's Benefit Express” program already under way.

ABC will also promote business transformation, grant loans to farmer households up-and-down the agro-industrial chain, and extend the pilot program on concentrated operation to provide better micro-finance service for farmer households.

In line with China’s industrialization, IT-based transformation, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, ABC will continue to actively explore better and better ways for industrialization and urbanization of finance and modernization of agriculture. Special outreach programs will extend more credit to farmer households, provide more credit for poverty relief and increase financing for rural infrastructure. Thus, ABC continues to explore and implement effective programs to fulfill its social responsibility in serving “Sannong (agriculture, farmers and rural areas)”.

ABC will actively engage development opportunities arising from urbanization, optimize distribution of business, outlets and resources, and foster its differentiated competitive edges. In response to the national overall plan on urbanization, ABC will prioritize supporting urbanization construction in outlying areas of large/medium-sized cities, developed counties, and areas with featured resources and industries. Emphasis will also be put on expanding urban infrastructure projects, industrial support projects and consumption upgrade projects for urban and rural citizens. Innovative credit policies and products for urbanization will be continuously introduced and Opinions on Supporting Urbanization Construction will be formulated to offer policy support to the banking business.

ABC will also make great efforts to improve the competitiveness of county-level sub-branches. Measures to be taken include strengthening their staff teams, organizational structures, resource guarantee systems, product innovation ability, , marketing capability, and acceleration of county-level sub-branch transformation.

Moreover, ABC will continue to promote the pilot reform of Sannong Banking Department on the basis of previous reform achievements. It will reinforce risk management over county-level business and implement the new three-year development plans for Sannong and county-level businesses.