Poverty Alleviation of People’s Bank of China

　　【Poverty-alleviation subsidized loans】  1. Based on the actual situation of poverty reduction in contiguous poor areas, we increased the investment of poverty-relief subsidized loans. Through continuous reform and improvement of the poverty-relief soft loan management system, the bank further mobilized the enthusiasm of financial agencies, improved the mechanism for the virtuous cycle of subsidized loans, constantly improved the production and living conditions of the masses in poor areas and narrowed the wealth gap between regions. According to preliminary statistics of the People's Bank of China, as of the end of 2011, the central poverty-relief subsidized loan balance was 27.588 billion Yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 19.8%. In 2011, 20.96 billion Yuan was issued, with an increase of 9.289 billion Yuan over the previous year. As for the destination regions of the loans, in 2011, the bank still targeted at the central and western poor areas concentrated with the contiguous regions with particular difficulties in the allocation of subsidized loans, and issued 5.926 billion Yuan and 11.356 billion Yuan of subsidized loans to the central and western regions respectively, accounting for 82.5% of the total, up 14.2% over the previous year, greatly promoting the anti-poverty work of the contiguous poor areas.

2. We cooperated with China Disabled Persons' Federation and LGOP to improve the relevant policies on pro-poor loans for rehabilitation. In 2011, in cooperation with China Disabled Persons' Federation, LGOP and the Ministry of Finance, People’s Bank of China issued the “Notice Concerning the Further Improvement of Relevant Policies on the Management of Rehabilitation-based Poverty Relief Loans and Discount Funds” (Can Lian Fa [2011] No. 6), increased the planned loans from no less than 800 million Yuan per year to no less than 1.03 billion Yuan per year, raised the discount rate for project loans from 3% of the annual interest to 5% in the discount period, and the discount rate for household loans from 5% of the annual interest to 7%, and continued to increase support for the habilitation of the disabled.

　　【preferential pro-poor policy】  1. Further improve the preferential loan interest rate policy for minority trade and the production of minority products to effectively boost the trade development of ethnic minority areas and help the masses get rich. In 2011, the People's Bank and the State Ethnic Affairs Commission jointly issued the “Notice on Continuing to Provide Preferential Loan Interest Rate for Minority Trade and the Production of Minority Goods” (Yin Fa [2011] No. 171), and clarified that during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, the People's Bank will actively explore new methods for providing loan interest discount for minority trade and the production of minority products. Before the introduction of the new approach, the bank will continue to implement the preferential policy of reducing the interest rate by 2.88 percentage points for the normal working capital loans of the enterprises engaged in production and trade of minority products. The lending rate mustn’t be raised. At the same time, the bank will intensify the implementation of the policy to ensure the benefits of the preferential policy.

2. Increase credit support for Xinjiang to vigorously promote the development and stability of Xinjiang. To boost the development of Xinjiang, the People's Bank of China and the relevant departments jointly issued the "Opinions on Financial Support for the Leapfrog Development of Xinjiang” (Yin Fa [2011] No. 118) in 2011 and clarified the financial measures of increasing credit support, enhancing the level of financial services and improving the financial organization system to accelerate the development of Xinjiang. At the same time, using a variety of monetary and credit policy tools, the bank supported financial institutions to increase support for Xinjiang’s livelihood projects such as the housing project to enrich people and the housing project to boost the development of animal husbandry industry. At the end of 2011, Xinjiang’s RMB loan balance was 672 billion Yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 35.1%, 20.7 percentage points higher than national average.

3. Promote the financial system reform of Tibet to provide a strong guarantee for the economic stability and loan growth in Xinjiang. The bank supported and helped Tibet to promote the reform of the financial system, speed up the establishment of local commercial banks and encourage banking institutions to support local development with the local deposits. At the end of 2011, Tibet’s RMB loan balance was 40.9 billion Yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 35.9%, 21.5 percentage points higher than national average.

　　【Expanding employment by entrepreneurship of key groups】  1. Improve the working mechanism, innovate the institutional mechanisms and give play to the role of small secured loan policy in supporting rural women's entrepreneurship and employment. In 2011, the People's Bank of China held the national on-site work meeting on small secured loans for women jointly with the All-China Women's Federation, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, summarized the work experience and analyzed the difficulties and problems. It guided and urged the branches to earnestly implement the small secured loan policy for women, gradually establish and improve the incentive, restraint and risk spreading mechanisms based on various policy resources, strengthen policy guidance and improve the relevant systems and to continuously boost the sound development of small secured loan business for rural women. As of the end of 2011, a total of 55.6 billion Yuan of small secured discount loans was issued to women, including 31.9 billion Yuan issued in 2011, directly benefiting 1.335 million urban and rural women and promoting the employments of more than 4 million people.

2. Actively provide financial services for expanding employment by entrepreneurship of key groups like university graduates and university student “village cadres”. We conscientiously implemented the requirements of the “Notice of the State Council on Further Promote the Employment of University Graduates” (Guo Fa [2011] No. 16), gave play to the positive role of small secured loans, and raised the central discount fund for eligible rural university graduates to apply for small secured loans for entrepreneurship from 50,000 Yuan to 100,000 Yuan. At the same time, establish and improve the long-term mechanism and monitoring systems to support the entrepreneurship of university graduate “village cadres” to enrich people, provided financial services for the entrepreneurship of university graduate “village cadres”, guided financial institutions to increase credit support for university graduate “village cadres” and encouraged university graduates to work in grassroots units. As of the end of 2011, according to the statistics of the People's Bank of China, there were a total of 229,000 university student village cadres in China, and the averagely loan balance of the university student village cadres who had applied for loans was 108,000 Yuan. The financial institutions of 25 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) issued loans to the university student village cadres and the loan balance was 390 million Yuan, up 13.9%.

3. Vigorously promote financial innovation and provide financing services for the entrepreneurship and employment of migrant workers. The bank improved the policies for small secured loans for entrepreneurship and included migrant workers into the coverage of small secured loans to support the entrepreneurship of migrant workers. We guided various kinds of financial institutions to actively conduct study of loan guarantee innovative mechanisms, and launched new products like the loans with renewable resources’ tax rebate as pledge, SME credit loans and the loans with emission rights as pledge, to promote the extension of agriculture-benefiting innovative products. The People's Bank of China Ningbo Central Sub-branch prepared the rural housing pledge loan implementation plan and the guideline on credit loan jointly with the relevant departments, achieved a breakthrough in the links of right confirmation, assessment, registration and transfer and revitalized the static assets, addressing the difficulties for migrant workers to get loans for employment and entrepreneurship. As of the end of 2011, the balance of small secured loans was 43.7 billion Yuan, with an annual increase of 14.9 billion Yuan, 3.2 billion Yuan more than the increase of the previous year. Of which, 5.14 billion Yuan was small secured loans for labor-intensive enterprises with a large number of migrant workers, up 40.9%. It effectively promoted the employment of migrant workers.

　　【Financial services for rural areas】  It is an important prerequisite for improving the quality of life and increase sources of income of the poor to strengthen the infrastructure construction and social services in rural areas including financial services. The People's Bank of China attached great importance to the rural financial system reform, promoted the establishment of the rural financial organization system integrating policy financing, commercial financing and cooperative financing, and strengthened the construction of rural payment system and credit system to effectively improve rural financial services and help the rural poor shake off poverty.

1. Continue to strengthen macroeconomic monetary and credit policy guidance, strengthen and improve financial services, and increase financial support for poor rural areas. The bank gave full play to the positive incentive role of the deposit reserve ratio policy and implemented lower the deposit reserve ratio for rural financial institutions. At present, the rural cooperative banks and rural credit cooperatives implement the deposit reserve ratio 5.5 and 6 percentage points above that of large commercial banks respectively. Among them, the rural cooperative banks and rural credit cooperatives with a small asset size and a high proportion of agriculture-related loans respectively implement the deposit reserve ratio 6.5 and 7 percentage points above that of large commercial banks. The sources of funding for the rural poor were steadily broadened. We urged the domestic commercial banks to give priority to poor areas in the allocation of credit resources based on the needs of economic development of poor areas, guided the local financial agencies of impoverished regions to give priority to local micro and small enterprises, “three rural issues” and livelihood improvement in the issuance of loans based on regional advantages, actively gave play to the role of guiding capital flow and promoting the adjustment of credit structure of agriculture-supporting reloans and, through increasing agriculture-supporting reloans for western areas, especially poverty-stricken areas, enhanced the financial strength of financial institutions in poor rural areas. As of the end of 2011, the rediscount loans amounted to 140.5 billion Yuan and the balance was 44.5 billion Yuan. Among that, 32% of the rediscount loans were issued to support agriculture, fully playing the role of guiding credit to the “three rural issues”. A total of 19.1 billion Yuan of agriculture-supporting reloans was increased, accounting for 38.2% of the quotas for increase.

2. Vigorously promote noncash payment instruments and payment and settlement systems in impoverished counties and rural areas to improve rural payment services environment. We organized teller services for small amount of deposits of farmers to improve villages’ payment services environment, and launched pilot projects to promote special bank card service for migrant workers. The cardholders can withdraw cash from nearby rural cooperative financial institutions or postal savings bank branches. The withdrawls are convenient and the procedure fee is much less than that of general bank remittance business, so it facilitates migrant workers’ nonlocal money depositing and withdrawing. Meanwhile, we guided and supported banks, especially rural credit cooperatives to accelerate the improvement of the internal clearing network and guided rural credit cooperatives’ capital settlement centers to establish and operate the payment clearing system. As of the end of 2011, a total of 175,200 withdrawal service centers for migrant workers had been set up in covering 128,100 administrative villages, accounting for 23.57% of the total administrative villages in China; Migrant workers withdrew a total of 19.89 billion Yuan through the special service for a total of 16,406,000 times; approximately 108,000 bank outlets were opened in rural areas, of which about 63,000 were connected with the interbank payment system of the People's Bank of China, accounting for approximately 58% of the total.

3. Vigorously promote the construction of rural credit system and support the poor to get involved in financing for entrepreneurship starting with credit building. Focusing on the construction of pilot areas, the People's Bank of China vigorously promoted the construction of rural credit system, carried out farmers’ credit rating and the construction of “credit villages” and “credit towns”, guided financial institutions to improve the level of financial services for “three rural issues”, pushed forward local governments and functional departments to introduce support policy and preferential policy for credit-related “three rural issues”, and supported farmers to launch their own businesses for development to promote rural economic development. As of the end of 2011, we had established credit files for a total of 143 million farmers, assessed the credit of more than 93.6 million rural households, provided credit support for more than 81 million rural households and the loan balance exceeded 1.5 trillion Yuan.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】  In 2011, under the correct leadership of the party committee of the People's Bank, with great efforts of local branches and strong support from the leaders of Yijun County, Yintai District, Tongchuan City of Shaanxi and local poverty alleviation office, in accordance with the principle of “really helping the poor and helping the real poor”, adhering to the intellectual poverty reduction, aiming to improve local production and living conditions and increase the income of the poor, the People's Bank of China focused on project support, highlighted skills trainings, strengthened policy publicity, further explored methods for poverty reduction, constantly increased efforts on poverty alleviation and comprehensively completed the fixed-point poverty alleviation task of this year. As of the end of 2011, the bank invested 1.6 million Yuan for poverty alleviation, of which: 800,000 Yuan was invested in the construction of 7 projects; 500,000 Yuan was interest-free loans; 60,000 Yuan was put in to support the practical skills training in rural areas; 40,000 Yuan was issued to solve the difficulties of 20 poor university students in going to school, and 200,000 Yuan was condolence payment.