China will accelerate the pace of rural financial reform and
provide more financial services for farmers, said a senior Chinese
banking official Friday.
Rural development needs a great deal of investment and banking
institutions should step up their efforts to build a solid rural
financial service system, said Tang Shuangning, vice chairman of
the China Banking Regulatory Commission, at a forum on rural
finance in Beijing.
The Chinese government is seeking to promote rural development
with the "new socialist countryside" program, which aims
to improve agricultural production, living conditions and public
administration in rural areas with their huge population of about
800 million.
It is estimated that some 15,000 billion to 20,000 billion yuan
(US$1,875 billion to US$2,500 billion) will be needed for new
countryside construction by 2020. Agriculture-related loans
amounted to less than one-fifth of all lending by 2005 in
China.
Financial reform in rural areas lags behind urban areas in pace,
level of investment, network density, business development,
management and quality of personnel, according to Tang.
China will reform major rural loan providers, including the
Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), the Agricultural Development Bank
of China (ADBC) and rural credit cooperatives, Tang said.
The ABC will be transformed into a state-owned commercial bank,
and the ADBC will also be reformed to increase its capacity to
serve agriculture, according to Tang.
Rural credit cooperatives will be turned into modern financial
enterprises over a five to ten year period, Tang said.
Postal savings banks will also be established, he said.
The ABC will improve services for pillar industries in
agriculture and leading rural companies, and the ADBC will increase
loans to poverty-stricken areas, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2006)