Poverty Alleviation of Agricultural Bank of China

　　【Overview】 In 2011, Agricultural Bank of China continued to take financial poverty alleviation as an important strategic task to serve "three rural issues", continued to adhere to development-oriented, industrialized and commercial financial poverty alleviation and, taking supporting local economic growth and boosting the common development of urban and rural areas as its task, increased agriculture-related loans of 227.3 billion Yuan, up 15.70%. At the end of 2011, the balance of agriculture-related loans was 1.6753 trillion Yuan, including agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery loan balance of 166.5 billion Yuan and microfinance loan balance of 106.5 billion Yuan for rural households. A total of 264.437 billion Yuan of loans was issued to national and provincial key counties, and the loan balance at the end of that year was 439.875 billion Yuan, up 12%, effectively improving the efficiency of agriculture, boosting rural development and promoting farmers' income growth. Agricultural Bank of China continued to do a good job in Wuqiang and Xian County of Hebei, donated relief funds of 2.33 million Yuan to support the education of the poor counties and achieved good social and economic benefits. With outstanding performance in the fixed-point poverty alleviation, Agricultural Bank of China was titled as “Advanced Collective for National Poverty Alleviation and Development” by the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

　　【Pro-poor policies】 In order to implement the spirit of the central work conference on poverty alleviation and development and the “Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)” and further promote the financial poverty reduction, Agricultural Bank of China issued the “Opinions on the Implementation of the ‘Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020)’ to Promote Financial Poverty Alleviation” (Nong Yin Ban Fa  [2011] No. 671) and presented the Program of Action for the credit poverty alleviation of the industry. With in-depth understanding of the new idea for anti-poverty work of the “Planning for Regional Development and Poverty Reduction in Wuling Mountain Areas (2011-2020)”, Agricultural Bank of China drafted the “Opinions of Agricultural Bank of China on Supporting the Regional Development and Poverty Reduction in Wuling Mountain Areas” and put forward the overall guideline and measures for the economic and social development of poor areas in a certain period of time in the future.

　　【Industrial poverty alleviation】 Poverty alleviation leading enterprises are the main forces for industrialization-based poverty alleviation. In order to give full play to the leading role of these enterprises in poverty reduction, Agricultural Bank of China issued 12.448 billion Yuan of loans to support 173 national poverty alleviation leading enterprises, averagely 74.54 million Yuan for each, which helped about 1.6 million poor rural households. At the same time, based on the economic characteristics of poverty-stricken areas, adhering to the principle of relative concentration of assets and capital, the bank explored a variety of modes such as "leading enterprises + base + farmers" to provide a full range of financial services for the development of industrialization leading enterprise of poverty-stricken areas and give full play to their role as a bridge linking farmers with the market to promote the comprehensive development of upstream and downstream industry chain. In 2011, Agricultural Bank of China provided credit support for 5425 agricultural industrialization leading enterprises at all levels, including 1892 in the two types of poor counties, helping 3.86 million rural households.

　　【Pro-poor credit loan】 After the poverty alleviation interest subsidy system reform, Agricultural Bank of China is no longer covered by the national poverty alleviation interest subsidy program. From the perspective of "three rural issues", however, it has been actively involved in the issuance of poverty alleviation loans. In 2011, Agricultural Bank of China issued poverty alleviation discount loans of 5.162 billion Yuan and the loan balance was 9.325 billion Yuan, which supported 822 poverty alleviation enterprises and increased the income of 444,000 poor rural households. In addition, through issuing wholesale loans to small poverty alleviation credit institutions, the bank conducted indirect poverty alleviation for rural households. In October 2011, in view of the excellent performance, high loan recovery rate and good poverty reduction effects of the pilot microfinance project of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, Agricultural Bank of China increased the credit line of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation by 100 million Yuan and the credit line reached 300 million Yuan. Meanwhile, it reduced the financial cost to support the pilot project of microfinance for poverty reduction. At the end of 2011, the loan balance of Agricultural Bank of China for the pilot microfinance projects of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation reached 230 million Yuan. Under the support of Agricultural Bank of China, the Foundation's pilot microfinance project witnessed rapid development. By the end of 2011, the pilot projects were launched in a total of 52 branches, covering 13,726 administrative village and 6.42 million rural households. Guizhou Xingren Rural Development Association is the undertaker of UNDP microfinance project and mainly issues small loans to the rural households in the towns of Xingren County. In September 2011, Agricultural Bank of China Guizhou Branch issued loans of 1.3 million Yuan to Xingren Rural Development Association and provided incentives for the association, such as no need for credit rating and lower loan interest rate, effectively alleviating the shortage of funds of the association.

　　【Rehabilitation poverty-relief loans】Under the premise of adhering to the basic credit system, based on the characteristics of welfare enterprises or disabled farmers, Agricultural Bank of China maintained flexibility on the access to credit and mainly supported the industrialization leading enterprises and welfare enterprises that helped find jobs and held trainings for the disabled to promote the development of public services for people with disabilities. In 2011, the bank invested a total of 174 million Yuan of rehabilitation poverty-relief loans to support 36 enterprises for the disabled and increased the income of 5239 rural households with disabled persons.

　　【Support Glory Projects】 Agricultural Bank of China always takes credit support for Glory Projects as an important part of the financial poverty alleviation. Glory project is a cause of social assistance for the poor initiated by non-public economy and organized by the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. In 2011, in accordance with the List of Recommended Glory Projects of the Central United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, Agricultural Bank of China issued the "Notice on the Implementation of CSPGP Loan Projects" (Nong Yin Nong Chan [2011] No. 11), required the branches to carefully review the recommended projects in accordance with relevant policies and the bank’s credit principles, and give priority to the eligible projects in the issuance of loans. In 2011, the bank provided support for five loan projects of CSPGP , provided it with a credit line of 263 million Yuan and loans of 153 million Yuan, increasing the income of 47,000 poor households.

　　【Poverty alleviation by issuing farmer-benefiting cards】 With the Farmer-Benefiting Card as the carrier, giving full play to the advantages of “simple procedure, cycled credit line and favorable interest rate” of micro-credit for rural households, Agricultural Bank of China actively promoted the issuance of loans and strived to provide inclusive, sustained high-quality financial services covering a wide range of areas for the farmers in poverty-stricken areas. At the end of 2011, a total of 98.22 million Farmer-Benefiting Cards were issued and 106.5 billion Yuan of small loans were issued to farmers, with a year-on-year increase of 9.3 billion Yuan. Agricultural Bank of China issued small loans of 43.159 billion Yuan for the rural households of impoverished counties.

　　【Implement Jinsui farm-benefiting project】 In order to provide financial services for rural areas, Agricultural Bank of China actively implemented the Jinsui farm-benefiting project to cover all the villages (hereinafter referred to as Jinsui farm-benefiting project): In rural areas, with farm-benefiting card as the carrier and electronic channels as the platform, complemented by mobile services, aiming to basically achieve full coverage of administrative villages for financial services, the bank provides convenient, quick basic financial services for the clients to meet the increasing financial needs of rural customers. At the end of 2011, the bank installed 1.62 million transfer phones, POS machines and ATMs in the county, including 740,000 for the towns and villages, covering 62% of the towns and 38% of the administrative villages, providing a convenient financial service channel for the rural residents.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】In 2011, the Agricultural Bank of China continued to provide counterpart support for Wuqiang and Xian County of Hebei, actively fulfilled its social responsibilities, increased efforts on poverty alleviation and achieved significant effects. The party committee of the Agricultural Bank of China attached great importance to fixed-point poverty alleviation and development work, organized the cadres of the headquarters to carry out field research in the two counties for many times, raised the annual donation standard for the two counties from 500,000 Yuan to 1 million Yuan, increased the annual poverty-relief training funds from 100,000 Yuan to 180,000 Yuan, and extend the service period of sending cadres to three years to guarantee the continuity and stability of the anti-poverty work.

　　Taking the improvement of the school conditions of rural basic education and the strengthening of skills training of farmers as the top priorities of the fixed-point poverty alleviation work, the Agricultural Bank of China invested a total of 2.33 million Yuan of poverty alleviation funds in 2011 and achieved remarkable economic and social benefits. First, it helped to complete the construction of Xian County Vocational Education Center project. The bank subsidized the school to set up four internship workshops, buy 74 sets of advanced practice equipment including control lathes, wire cutting machines and electric spark machines and set up one garment processing line with 100 positions. Second, it supported Xian County Teacher Training School build Tsinghua University Distance Learning Station. The bank funded the school to purchase a multimedia teaching equipment, computers and related auxiliary equipment, set up two state-of-the-art computer rooms and three multimedia classrooms, and set up secondary distance web-based instruction station for the primary and secondary schools directly affiliated to the county, making the school reach the requirements of the Ministry of Education for teacher training schools. Third, it supported Wuqiang County to implement two Hope Primary School projects. The bank successively provided financial aid for the school building construction and renovation of Beidai Town ABC Hope Primary School and Changcun Jinsui Hope Primary School, and launched the bicycle shed project, playground and campus road hardening project for Beidai Town ABC Hope Primary School in 2011. Fourth, it supported the implementation of the plastic playground project of Wuqiang County Middle School. In 2011, it issued 600,000 Yuan for the school to construct the platform and install lighting equipment around the playground. As a result, this school’s playground became the exclusive high-standard playground in Wuqiang County and one of the three high-standard playground in Hengshui City of Hebei Province. Fifth, it supported the implementation of the teaching laboratory construction project of Wuqiang Middle School. In 2011, the bank donated 600,000 Yuan for the school to set up five general technical, physical, chemical and biological laboratories, reaching and exceeding the standards and requirements for high school curriculum reform equipments. Sixth, it continued to organize donation charity sponsorship activity. In 2011, the bank donated desks, chairs and teaching aids worth 150,000 Yuan to Beidai Town ABC Hope Primary School of Wuqiang County. Under the leadership of the sending cadres of Xian County, a relief fund was set up in the headquarters to support needy university students and subsidized two poor students who were enrolled to Tianjin University, 20,000 Yuan for each. Seventh, it continued to hold township mayor training courses for the poor counties involved in the fixed-point poverty alleviation. The bank holds a township mayor training course for the two poor counties every year to broaden their horizons and thinking, making them determined to lead the masses to change the backwardness of poor areas.