USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文双语Français
Business
Home / Business / Finance

Chinese banks lend more to agriculture, small firms

Xinhua | Updated: 2017-02-22 14:48

BEIJING - Chinese banks strengthened financial support for agriculture, small-and-micro enterprises and affordable housing projects last year.

Outstanding agriculture-related loans stood at 28.2 trillion yuan ($4.1 trillion) at the end of 2016, up 7.1 percent year on year, according to a statement posted on the website of the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Outstanding loans to small-and-micro firms hit 26.7 trillion yuan, up 13.8 percent.

Lending to affordable housing projects surged 58.7 percent from a year ago, well above the average loan growth of 12.8 percent.

China has channeled more energy into fostering agricultural development and small businesses, with financial support playing a significant role.

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said on Tuesday that it will extend a favorable policy that allows banks with big lending to small and agricultural firms to enjoy a lower cash reserve ratio.

The statement also showed falling bad loan ratio and better profit of banks last year.

Chinese lenders saw the ratio of their non-performing loans fall to 1.74 percent at the end of 2016, slightly down from 1.76 percent a quarter ago.

Banks reported faster profit growth thanks to a firming economy. Net profits of commercial lenders increased 3.54 percent year on year, up 1.11 percentage points from a year ago.

Most Viewed in 24 Hours
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US