Recently, in order to thoroughly implement important guidelines of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee and the Central Rural Work Conference and the requirements set forth in the Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization and Accelerating Agricultural and Rural Modernization, the People’s Bank of China (PBC), the Office of the Central Leading Group for Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued the Opinions on Extending Financial Support to the Development of New Types of Agribusinesses (Yinfa No.133 [2021]) (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions).
The Opinions points out that, at present, new types of agribusinesses, including family farms, farmers’ cooperatives and specialized agricultural service organizations have progressively become an important force that ensures steady increase of rural incomes, effective supply of agricultural products, as well as transformation and upgrading of agriculture. Providing sound financial services for new types of agribusinesses is of great significance for consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation, promoting comprehensive rural revitalization and agricultural and rural modernization, and fostering a new development paradigm.
To provide sound financial services to new types of agribusinesses, the Opinions sets forth specific requirements from several aspects, including enhancing information sharing, strengthening financial bearing capacity, improving financial service organization systems, promoting the development of unsecured loans, expanding the scope of collaterals and pledges, creating new exclusive financial products and services, improving credit risk monitoring, sharing and compensation mechanisms, expanding diversified financing channels, bolstering the capacity of agricultural insurance services, and stepping up policy incentives.
The Opinions emphasizes the need to strengthen information sharing of new types of agribusinesses and improve the mechanism of releasing the list of agribusinesses, to achieve better coordination between banks and businesses for financing activities. Banking institutions should provide qualified new types of agribusinesses with unsecured loans, and work on formulating differentiated policies for unsecured loans based on the characteristics of different new types of agribusinesses. Efforts should be made to actively promote loans with rural contracted land-use rights as collaterals and support lawful financing that use agricultural machinery and tools and greenhouse-related facilities as collaterals or pledges. The Opinions also calls for active “first-time loan” activities and loan renewals without repayment of principal for new types of agribusinesses. Meanwhile, it supports qualified new types of agribusinesses to secure financing through bonds and equity, and calls for improvement of the agricultural reinsurance system and the risk diversification mechanism against major disasters.
The Opinions specifies the need to steadily expand the pilot project of rural inclusive finance reform and construct experimental zones of rural revitalization financial services according to relevant procedures. The financial services provided for new types of agribusinesses will be included in the assessment of financial institutions' services for rural revitalization, and more importance will be attached to the application of assessment results.
Next, the PBC will work in concert with the Office of the Central Leading Group for Rural Affairs, the MARA, the MOF, the CBIRC, the CSRC, and local governments and financial systems to jointly promote the implementation of the guidelines of the Opinions, so as to continuously boost the availability, coverage and convenience of financial services for new types of agribusinesses, and to promote the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas while enhancing the quality, performance and competitiveness of agriculture.
