Corporate loan interest rates hit a record low, and inclusive small and micro loans support more than 43 million small and micro business entities——

　　Small and Micro Enterprise Financing: Volume Increase, Coverage Expansion, Price Decrease (Rui Finance)

　　Our reporter Xu Peiyu, "People's Daily Overseas Edition" (Version 03, January 07, 2022)

　　Looking back on 2021, how is the financing situation of small and micro enterprises?

Zou Lan, Director of the Financial Markets Department of the People’s Bank of China, said at a press conference held recently that since the beginning of this year, the banking system’s liquidity has been reasonable and abundant, financial service capabilities have continued to improve, and small and micro enterprise financing has continued to maintain “increased volume, coverage, and price. The good trend of “decreasing and structural optimization”.

　　Looking forward to 2022, how to continue to increase financial support for small and micro enterprises?

The People's Bank of China has made it clear that the two monetary policy tools that directly reach the real economy will continue to switch.

　　The overall financing cost has been steadily decreasing

　　Since 2021, the People's Bank of China has implemented a prudent monetary policy that is flexible, precise, reasonable and appropriate, based on me, and stable. The forward-looking, precise, and effective monetary policy has been further improved, and financial support for the real economy has been further increased.

　　Comprehensive use of multiple monetary policy tools to maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity.

In July and December 2021, the RRR was cut by 0.5 percentage points each, releasing a total of 2.2 trillion yuan in long-term funds.

Statistics show that in the first 11 months of 2021, new loans will be 18.8 trillion yuan, an increase of 438.4 billion yuan year-on-year.

At the end of November, the M2 growth rate was 8.5%, and the social financing scale growth rate was 10.1%, which basically matched the nominal economic growth rate.

　　Various measures have been taken to ensure that the overall financing costs of enterprises are steadily and slightly reduced.

Continue to unleash the potential of LPR reform. In December 2021, the one-year LPR will drop by 5 basis points to 3.8%.

Optimize the supervision of deposit interest rates, change the self-regulatory ceiling of deposit interest rates from the increase of the deposit benchmark interest rate to a fixed point, and reduce the cost of bank liabilities.

In the first 11 months of 2021, the corporate loan interest rate was 4.61%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.11 percentage point. In November, the corporate loan interest rate was 4.54%, the lowest since statistics.

　　Increase support for key areas and weak links of the national economy.

At the beginning of 2021, an increase of 200 billion yuan in re-loan lines, an increase of 300 billion yuan in small-scale re-lending lines, the introduction of carbon emission reduction support tools and 200 billion yuan in special re-lending to support the clean and efficient use of coal.

　　Small and micro enterprises' financing situation is good

　　In terms of financing for small and micro enterprises, inclusive small and micro loans supported 43.04 million small and micro business entities, a year-on-year increase of 35%, and the growth rate was 15.6% higher than the end of the previous year.

From a structural point of view, the proportion of credit loans continued to increase. At the end of November 2021, credit loans accounted for 17.8% of inclusive small and micro loans, 2.4 percentage points higher than the end of the previous year; The overall loan-acquisition rate of the new “little giant” enterprises is 71.8%, and the average loan balance per household is 76.2 million yuan.

　　In order to effectively solve the problem of financing difficulties for small and micro enterprises, in June 2020, the People's Bank of China created two monetary policy tools that directly reach the real economy-the inclusive small and micro enterprise loan deferred principal and interest policy and the credit loan support program. It has effectively promoted the stabilization of enterprises and employment.

　　According to Sun Guofeng, Director of the Monetary Policy Department of the People’s Bank of China, as of the end of November 2021, the People’s Bank of China has provided 18.9 billion yuan in incentive funds through inclusive small and micro enterprise loan deferred debt service support tools, directly driving local corporate banks to 20,000 The extension of the RMB 100 million inclusive loan for small and micro enterprises has spurred the extension of the 15.1 trillion RMB loan by banking institutions across the country.

The People's Bank of China provided 317.5 billion yuan of low-cost funds through the Inclusive Small and Micro Credit Loan Support Program, directly driving local corporate banks to issue inclusive small and micro credit loans of 879.4 billion yuan, leveraging the national banking institutions to issue 96,000 inclusive small and micro credit loans 100 million yuan, and achieved obvious results.

　　In addition, focusing on bank account services and RMB settlement, the People's Bank of China has introduced 12 measures to reduce fees and share profits to better support the development of small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households.

As of the end of November 2021, commercial banks, payment institutions, and clearing institutions have distributed about 5.45 billion yuan in profits to the real economy, benefiting more than 73 million market entities in total, among which commercial banks have reduced or exempted small and micro enterprise account opening fees of 1.62 billion yuan.

　　Increase support for market players

　　In 2022, in order to continue to increase financial support to the real economy, the People's Bank of China has implemented the inclusive small and micro enterprise loan extension support tool and the inclusive small and micro enterprise credit loan support plan from January 1st to continue the conversion of two direct tools.

　　Specifically, the first is to convert inclusive small and micro enterprise loan extension support tools into inclusive small and micro loan support tools.

Financial institutions and enterprises independently negotiate the repayment of loan principal and interest in accordance with the principles of marketization.

From 2022 to the end of June 2023, the People's Bank of China will provide funds based on 1% of the increase in the balance of inclusive small and micro loans of local corporate banks, and operate on a quarterly basis to encourage the continuous increase of inclusive small and micro loans.

"Inclusive small and micro loan support tools have built-in incentive mechanisms, which have fully mobilized the enthusiasm of financial institutions." The relevant person in charge of the People's Bank of China said.

　　The second is to incorporate the inclusive credit loan support program for small and micro enterprises into the management of re-loan for supporting agriculture and supporting small businesses.

Starting from 2022, the inclusive small and micro enterprise credit loan support plan will no longer be implemented. The 400 billion yuan of the support plan will be included in the management of the agricultural and small-scale reloan line, and the agricultural and small-scale reloan line will be increased on the existing basis.

Eligible local corporate banks can continue to apply to the People's Bank of China for preferential financial support for reloans for supporting agriculture and small businesses with inclusive small and micro credit loans issued.

　　The above-mentioned person in charge stated that the two direct tools have been postponed twice before. This time the People’s Bank of China has adopted a market-based approach to continue the conversion of the two direct tools. Continue to do a good job of financial support to protect market entities in a continuous way.