Blocks on the road to Riches

By Dan Chinoy (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-13 09:36

Ten years ago, Lu Xuetao's livelihood depended entirely on two pigs and a handful of chickens. A poor farmer in Hebei's Yixian county, just two hours from Beijing, he lived virtually untouched by China's dramatic economic growth, rising standards of living and rapidly expanding opportunities.

Du Xiaoshan, a poverty alleviation researcher for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who founded Funding the Poor Cooperative (FPC) in 1993. [Jonah M. Kessel]

That all changed in 1999 when a small organization called Funding the Poor Cooperative (FPC) offered him a loan of 1,000 yuan ($140).

Lu used the money to buy a new pig and paid the loan back easily. It was a vital springboard and, after a decade of help from FPC, his farm has expanded to almost 80 pigs and more chickens than he can count. His annual income has also soared to 30,000 yuan.

"I couldn't have done it without the loans. I just wouldn't have had any other options," said Lu, who in his collared shirt, glasses and faux leather shoes looks more like a computer programmer than a Chinese farmer.

This, advocates say, is the promise of microfinance in China: opportunities for those largely forgotten by the country's economic development.

Pioneered in the late 1970s by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank, the basic concept is simple: extend small loans to the poor for otherwise unaffordable investments with a long-term payoff, like a pig or a stove for a roadside dumpling stand.

But despite almost 15 years of research, pilot projects, advocacy by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the State Council's renewed focus on poverty reduction, stories like Lu's are still rare in China.

As Yunus joined China's microfinance experts in Beijing for a major conference last month, it was clear the sector faced a daunting array of problems that have stymied its development, including inadequate or overly restrictive government regulations, complex logistical challenges, poor risk management, a lack of expertise and insufficient funding.

Wang Guiling owns a small pharmacy and clinic in Yixian county, Hebei province, just two hours from Beijing. She said her business relies on small loans from FPC to restock until she is paid by her customers, who mostly buy on credit. [Chantal Anderson]

The numbers tell part of the story. Two-thirds of the nation's rural villagers - around 480 million people - have no access to formal credit, the China Banking Regulatory Commission estimated in 2006. A recent report from the World Microfinance Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, also stated there were only about 100 poverty alleviation-focused microfinance NGOs in China, serving an estimated 150,000 clients. Only about 10 NGOs can independently cover the costs of their loans, the report stated.

In contrast, there are more than 1,000 such microfinance institutions in India, according to Intellecap, an India-based social investment consultancy, and that does not include the millions of informal "self-help groups" of 10 to 15 women who receive and distribute small loans from the country's 500 or so formal banks. Grameen Bank alone has nearly 8 million customers worldwide.

"The development of microfinance in China lags far, far behind the rest of the world," said Bai Chengyu, chairman of the China Association of Microfinance, to which most microfinance organizations in China belong.

When Du Xiaoshan, a poverty alleviation researcher for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, founded FPC in 1993, things looked more promising.

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