Tosupport the reemployment of unemployed laid-off workers and promote theimplementation of micro guaranteed credit policy, the People's Bank of China,the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and theChina Banking Regulatory Commission jointly held a videoconference on promotingthe implementation of micro credit policy on the morning of July 6, 2004. VicePremier HUANG Ju made important instructions on the conference requiring alllevels of governments and relevant departments to reach common understandingand solve problems emerged in the implementation of the micro credit policy sothat it can effectively promote re-employment.
Presentat the conference are officials from General Office of the State Council,Member Ministries of the Joint Conference on Re-employment including the People'sBank of China, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor and SocialSecurity, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, and representatives from thestate-owned commercial banks and share-holding commercial banks.Representatives from Jiang Xi, Hei Longjiang, Chongqing,Tianjin and Shanghaiintroduced their experiences in micro credit extension. Officials from thePeople's Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor andSocial Security and the China Banking Regulatory Commission laid out plans forpromoting the extension of micro credit at the conference.
Accordingto Vice Premier HUANG Ju, micro credit is one of the important policies inpromoting re-employment. Its implementation will not only provide unemployedlaid-off workers with capital to find jobs and start up business on their own,but also demonstrate governments' efforts in helping unemployed laid-offworkers. All levels of governments and departments should deepen theirunderstanding, strengthen policy publicity, enhance coordination andsupervision, solve implementation difficulties, introduce business training program,establish credit assessment mechanism, give full play to guaranteed credit andfiscal subsidy so that those polices can be faithfully implemented to promotere-employment.
Sincemicro credit extension to unemployed laid-off workers was first introduced in2002, the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry ofLabor and Social Security have consecutively issued a series of policydocuments, which stipulate the target borrowers, loan size, maturity, guaranteeand interest subsidy, with a purpose of promoting the extension of micro creditand improving the re-employment of unemployed laid-off workers. With jointefforts of all relevant parties, micro credit policy has become the mostimportant policy to support the reemployment of laid-off workers. By end-May of2004, the outstanding amount of micro credit to laid-off workers extended byall financial institutions reached RMB1.22 billion yuan, among which, RMB590million yuan was extended in the period from January to May in 2004. At thesame time, many practical and effective methods tailor to local situation wereintroduced in different regions, producing positive results in grantingsupportive loans and promoting re-employment.
InMarch 2004, given the main problems in re-employment efforts and experiencesfrom different regions, the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance andthe Ministry of Labor Protection jointly issued the Circular on PromotingMicro Credit to Unemployed Laid-off Workers (Bank Document 2004 No.51) toincrease the feasibility and efficiency of micro credit policy throughstreamlining guarantee procedures, reducing counter-guarantee threshold andclarifying risk-sharing mechanisms. The purpose of this conference is to publicizeand implement relevant micro credit policies, exchange local practices andsuccessful experiences and stimulate new breakthroughs in micro credit.
Thisconference requires all levels of governments and relevant departments to focuson the following works through strengthening coordination and improvingunderstanding: First, to improve risk-sharing and remuneration mechanism for microcredit, effectively streamline loan guarantee and approval procedures and lowercounter-guarantee threshold; Second, to expand the experiences of combining jobtraining with micro credits to help laid-off workers start up business; Third,to leverage social security platforms at communities to establish creditcommunities; Forth, to speed up the approval and disbursement of fiscal subsidyfunds to make sure they are in place in time; Fifth, to help small and mediumsized financial institutions to define appropriate market niche in order forthem to provide laid-off workers with quality financial services; Sixth, tostrengthen credit support to small enterprises so that they can absorb morelabor forces.
Atthe conference, the People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance pointedout that, in the second half of this year, they will introduce the model of jobtraining plus micro credit in 100 large and medium sized cities nationwide. Atthe same time, they will start to establish credit communities in 13 cities soas to fully realize the effects of combining micro credit with credit communityand effectively improve the quality of micro credit and re-employment rate.
