To implement the decisions and arrangements made by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council, make significant efforts in technology finance, and step up support for the financing of technology-based start-ups, in April 2024, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), together with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and other agencies, set up a central bank lending facility for sci-tech innovation and technological transformation with a combined size of RMB500 billion, of which the RMB100 billion quota is used to provide special support for first-time loans to technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises in their early stage of development or in growth stage, and encourage financial institutions to ramp up investment in startups at their early stages, small startups, and key & core technology enterprises. Recently, based on the evaluation results of the “Enterprise Innovation Points-based System”, the PBOC and the MOST selected the first batch of nearly 7,000 eligible enterprises and recommended them to 21 national banks. All these banks responded quickly and took prompt action. The first batch of loans for sci-tech innovation has been issued recently, and other loans will be originated in succession. The PBOC and the MOST are going to evaluate the second batch of more than 320,000 technology-based enterprises based on their innovation points, and the list of selected enterprises will be sent to banks.
Moving forward, the PBOC will continue to strengthen its cooperation with the MOST and other agencies, optimize points-based evaluation indicators of innovation, and improve government-bank-enterprise match-ups. It will encourage banks to make good and full use of the central bank lending for sci-tech innovation and technological transformation, and channel more financial resources to the field of sci-tech innovation, thus providing strong financial support for speeding up the development of new quality productive forces.
