ACFIC and the China Construction Bank, the country’s second largest commercial bank by market value, have signed the Framework Cooperation Agreement on Supporting the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and County-Level Economy, pledging further cooperation in financial services to promote the healthy development of SMEs and construction of the rural areas. 

 

More than 100 people, including senior government officials, private businessmen and representatives from trade groups attended the signing ceremony held in the Great Hall of the People on January 13, 2010.

 

Huang Mengfu, the ACFIC Chairman, called the agreement a key step toward the implementation of the State Council’s social economic development strategy and promotion of the SMEs and county-level economic development. It will also contribute to narrowing the rural and urban gap, speeding up the new countryside construction, promoting employment of urban township residents and redundant rural labor, and maintaining social stability, he said.  

 

Calling the development of the SMEs and county-level economy a long-term project, Huang said that the ACFIC and the CCB should work on their cooperative mechanism and make substantial progress on the working level.    

 

Guo Shuqing, CCB Board Chairman, said that while CCB has a tradition of serving the country’s infrastructure and major projects construction, it is exploring new measures to serve the SMEs and county-level economy.

 

So far, CCB has established more than 700 business outlets for small enterprises across the country, 140 business centers for small enterprises modeled on “credit factories” in major cities and counties. The bank has established rural township banks targeting the county economy and rolled out a series of new financial methods, such as mutually guaranteed joint loans, e-loans, small unsecured loans, loans with bigger credit, lower interest and longer duration for SMEs, and small-credit rural loans.

 

According to Guo, CCB’s banking loans to SMEs have increased at an annual average of 20 percent over the past three years, while currently, SMEs account for 85 percent of CCB’s corporate customers. In 2009, its total lending related to farmers, the countryside and the farming industry rose 35 percent.