National financing platform launched to help SMEs

Beijing launched the first national financing service platform serving energy conservation industry on Friday, as a move to further ease the difficulty of small and medium-sized enterprises accessing bank loans, according to the capital's development and reform commission.

The total output value of Beijing's energy conservation service industry is about 71.5 billion yuan ($ 10.4 billion), which accounts for 15 percent of the whole industry at national level, according to the ESCO Committee of China Energy Conservation Association. By the end of 2018, there were 941 energy conservation companies in Beijing.

The platform adopted online and offline service modes to help companies publish financing needs and financial institution products online, said Fang Mingcheng, director of resource conservation and environment protection department of Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform. It also recommends personalized solutions in bank loans for enterprises offline.

A WeChat online platform that includes contents of policy information, enterprise projects, financial institutions and industrial news has also gone online. Seven financial institutions in banking industry will provide relevant services via the platform.

Jiao Yue, deputy director of Beijing Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Association, said the platform owns four databases in policy, enterprises, institutions and think tanks.

"It aims to solve the problem of information imbalance between small and medium-sized enterprises and financial institutions," he said.