Poverty Alleviation of China Banking Regulatory Commission

　　【Issuance of agriculture-related credit loans】 Based on the complex international and domestic economic situation in 2011, China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) conducted objective analysis of the new features and new requirements of China's rural financial services, promptly put forward the opinions and measures for doing a good job of rural financial services in 2011 according to the guiding ideology of adjusting the credit structure under the prudent monetary policy to ensure the investment in “three rural issues”, issued the “Notice on Comprehensive Financial Services for Rural Areas” (Yin Jian Ban Fa [2011] No. 36), required the financial institutions to highlight the pertinence of rural financial services focusing on supporting water conservancy reform and development under the premise of prevention of financial risks, increase capital investment in drought relief and spring land preparation, provide financial support to promote food production and ensure not to reduce agriculture-related credit support in 2011 so that the growth rate of agriculture-related credit loans will not be lower than the average growth rate of other loans. As of the end of 2011, the agriculture-related loans of financial institutions amounted to 14.6016 trillion Yuan, 2.727 trillion Yuan more than that at the beginning of the year, up 24.9% over the previous year, 8.8 percentage points higher than the average growth rate of loans, and the increase accounted for 34.2% of the total increase in the loans. The small and medium-sized financial institutions in rural areas continued to play a role as the main force of agriculture services, agriculture-related loans reached 4.7047 trillion Yuan, 817.95 billion Yuan more than that at the beginning of the year, accounting for 30% of the total agriculture-related loans of financial institutions, 0.9 percentage points above the average growth rate of the loans in the same period. The agriculture-related loans of state-owned commercial banks amounted to 4.8391 trillion Yuan, with an increase of 796.7 billion Yuan over the beginning of the year, up 25% over the same period of the previous year, and the growth rate was 11.7 percentage points above the average. The agriculture-related loans of joint-stock commercial banks in China reached 1.6474 trillion Yuan, with an increase of 396 billion Yuan over the beginning of the year, up 34.5% over the same period of last year, 19.7 percentage points above the average growth rate.

　　【Development of new-type rural financial institutions】 In accordance with the principle of “targeting at 'three rural issues', step by step, risk control and effective supervision”, the China Banking Regulatory Commission required village and township banks to insist on the market positioning of targeting at “three rural issues” and the operation principle of “serving scattered small clients”, and adhere to mainly serving rural households and agriculture-related micro and small enterprises to really grow into professional micro and small banks serving “three rural issues”. We studied and improved the market access policy, enhanced the requirements for the health development of originating banks and the qualification of rural financial institutions, guided and encouraged originating banks to set up township banks through centralized initiation to effectively solve the problem of costly coordination and management, promote rational regional layout, improve the quality of development and further strengthen and improve the rural financial services in central and western regions and underdeveloped counties. As of the end of 2011, China had set up 691 new-type rural financial institutions, including 635 village banks, 10 finance companies and 46 rural mutual-aid societies. Among them, 414 were in the central and western provinces, accounting for 60%. A total of 43.2 billion Yuan of loans was issued to rural households and 62 billion Yuan was issued to rural small businesses, accounting for 32.8% and 47.1% of the loan balance respectively, 22.8 billion Yuan and 31.7 billion Yuan more than that at the beginning of that year.

　　【Service equalization】 In 2011, under the supervision and guidance of the banking supervision department, with positive involvement of the banking institutions and great support from local party committee and government, through close cooperation between the relevant departments of the state, we achieved full coverage of 616 towns without financial agencies in providing basic financial services. The number of the towns without financial agencies was reduced to 1696 from 2945 in 2009, when the work was initiated, the number of the provinces (including the municipalities with independent planning) with both township financial agencies and services increased from nine to 24, and historic changes took place to the financial services in remote rural areas.

　　【Product and service innovation】 In 2011, accurate understanding the new trend of “synchronization of industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization” of agricultural and rural development in China, based on the new changes in the economic structure, we vigorously exchanged and promoted excellent agriculture-related financial products and service modes, guided and pushed forward agriculture-related financial agencies to constantly explore the introduction of inexpensive, replicable agriculture-related financial products and services in accordance with the credit policies issued in recent years to support farmers’ cooperatives, forest right pledge, agriculture-related credit and insurance cooperation, etc. A lot of agriculture-related financial innovations were made in various regions based on local actual situations. Ningbo Cixi Rural Cooperative Bank, for example, established four kinds of credit lending models of "banks + business operating households + various organizations + loan risk guarantee fund" jointly with the rural households, merchants and other clients as well as various types of groups and organizations (professional associations, chambers of commerce and villagers’ committees). In cooperation with medical and health departments, Agricultural Bank of China Guangxi Branch served as an agent of new rural cooperative medical service and, taking agriculture-benefiting card as a carrier, achieved capital and overall payment for the new rural cooperative medical service. In case of insufficient funds in the account, the insured farmers can pay medical fee and hospitalization expenses with loans. In such a way, the bank provided comprehensive financial services for farmers. In Hunan, ICBC launched the "Link Express" products for the farmers. In Guangxi, the Rural Credit Cooperatives launched the financial subsidy pledged loans for the immigrants of reservoir areas according to the policy of post-relocation poverty-relief subsidy of 600 Yuan per person per year for the immigrants for 20 consecutive years. The Rural Credit Cooperatives in Huarong County of Hunan Province strengthened its cooperation with insurance companies. On the basis of enjoying the insurance beneficiary rights of the borrowers’ property insurance for individual units, accidental injury insurance, commercial property insurance, cargo insurance and motor vehicle insurance, it effectively dispersed the loan risks of farmers and made the coverage rate of farmers’ loans increased by 8.5%. On the basis of launching forest right pledged loans, according to the guiding ideology of operation right pledge, Hubei Zhongxiang Rural Credit Cooperatives developed mining rights pledged loans, etc. In addition, in order to better develop and promote rural small loans without collateral or guarantee, on the basis of survey, analysis and experience-summarizing of the small credit loans in Hainan, the CBRC established new lending methods for farmers based on the relevant experience and practices to standardize the lending procedures of small loans.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】The CBRC attaches great importance to the fixed-point poverty alleviation work in Hezheng County of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. It set up the leading group and the Office of the Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation with Member and Vice Chairman of the Party Committee Guo Ligen as the head. In order to promote the anti-poverty work based on the actual situation of Hezheng County, when CBRC was first designated to provide counterpart support for Hezheng County, relevant departments of CBRC carried out field research in the county for many times, determined the poverty reduction pattern integrating intellectual poverty alleviation, project construction-based poverty reduction, industrial poverty alleviation and platform-based poverty reduction, laying a good basis for the implementation of the fixed-point poverty alleviation. To ensure the orderly, efficient implementation of the fixed-point poverty alleviation, for two consecutive years, the CBRC held the leading group’s work conference on the fixed-point poverty alleviation participated by representatives of relevant departments of the party committee, financial trade unions, the banking association, Gansu Banking Regulatory Bureau, Guangdong Banking Regulatory Bureau and eight financial institutions, and made deployments for the fixed-point poverty alleviation work of that year, laying a good system basis for the fixed-point poverty alleviation work in the whole year. Meanwhile, the Organization Department of CBRC Party Committee also headed the leading group office members to guide the anti-poverty project construction in Hezheng County to enhance the pertinence of poverty relief projects and the efficiency of relief funds. In 2011, based on the actual situation of Hezheng County, focusing on intellectual poverty alleviation, project construction-based poverty reduction, industrial poverty alleviation and platform-based poverty reduction, the CBRC determined and implemented ten poverty relief projects and achieved good social and economic benefits. In 2011, the CBRC system invested a total of 5.804625 million Yuan to the county involved in the fixed-point poverty alleviation, including 885,000 Yuan in kind, and CBRC has sent excellent cadres to support the anti-poverty work of Hezheng County for two consecutive years.