China has introduced preferential policies and promoted multi-departmental collaboration to better meet the financing needs of small and micro enterprises across the country.
A new energy vehicle company in Changzhou City of east China's Jiangsu Province recently faced an urgent need to upgrade its equipment due to its lagging production capacity, and it then successfully and smoothly received a loan of 9.5 million yuan (about 1.31 million U.S. dollars) from the bank in four days with an actual interest rate at only 1.4 percent.
"We have combined with provincial and municipal special policies, the company was subsidized 2 percent of loan interest and 0.8 percent of guarantee fees, saving 90 percent of capital costs," said Yan Liming, product manager of the inclusive finance department of the Bank of Jiangsu Changzhou Branch.
Data showed that as of mid-November, 276 medium-sized, small and micro enterprises in Jiangsu had submitted financing guarantee demands totaling 2.59 billion yuan for equipment upgrades, and the provincial finance department has allocated a total of 17.95 million yuan in guarantee fee subsidies.
More favorable policies are also being implemented to address the bottlenecks and obstacles in the financing of small and micro enterprises as the National Financial Regulatory Administration and the National Development and Reform Commission have arranged to establish a nationwide coordination mechanism to support the financing of these business entities. In Xinchang County of Shaoxing City of east China's Zhejiang Province, a financing working group composed of officials and staff members from local government departments and banks is racing against time to compile a list of enterprises in the region that have financing needs.
"Our economy and information section has already surveyed 410 enterprises and 12 of them have financing needs. Next, we will arrange the second and third rounds of survey work," said Ye Qun, a member of the special working group on the financing coordination mechanism for small and micro enterprises in Xinchang County.
Thanks to the coordinative efforts of the working group, an industrial magnet manufacturing company in Zhejiang that had been established for less than a year quickly obtained a bank loan of 5 million yuan to introduce new foreign equipment to promote their production.
"We received the loan within half a month. The equipment was immediately in place and we can start production next month," said Yu Guanghua, president of the company.
At present, all districts and counties in Shaoxing have set up special working groups to conduct full-coverage visits and surveys of local small and micro enterprises, self-employed industrial and commercial households and new agricultural operators, and formed a recommended list for enterprises that have financing needs and meet the standards. Banks must make a decision on whether to grant credit within one month after receiving all the materials concerning the list.
"We have initially connected with 13,000 enterprises, granted credit of 26 billion yuan, and achieved initial results," said Lin Zusong, director of the Shaoxing branch office under the National Financial Regulatory Administration.
Meanwhile, a matching event on turning scientific research achievements into industrial production was held Wednesday in Jinan, capita of east China's Shandong to provide full-range support for local mall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Jointly organized by departments including the China Center for Promotion of SME Development under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the Development Planning Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the event organized a roadshow to promote 60 scientific achievements of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, at which five projects were signed with an intended investment of 100 million yuan.
"We mainly target high-value invention patents, use AI foundation model technology for training, match local industrial needs with innovation needs, and carefully select some projects that are more capable of turning research achievements into industrial production for implementation," said Weng Qiwen, director of the China Center for Promotion of SME Development.
After the event session, the participating departments, banks and investment institutions will also provide full life cycle services such as financial support and industrial integration for the matching projects, helping specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises to accelerate their development, according to organizers.
Favorable policies, multi-party collaboration greatly promotes small business financing
