Our reporter Liu Qi
“Most of my country’s enterprises are private enterprises, and the vast majority of private enterprises are small and micro enterprises. In recent years, my country has successfully embarked on an inclusive financial development path with Chinese characteristics.” Secretary of the Party Committee of the People’s Bank of China, Bank of China Insurance Guo Shuqing, Chairman of the Supervision and Management Committee, said so in an interview with the media a few days ago.
According to Guo Shuqing, as of the end of last year, the balance of inclusive small and micro enterprise loans exceeded 23 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of regarding 25% in the past five years, much higher than other countries, and loan interest rates have also continued to decline. From 2016 to 2020, the average non-performing rate of loans to small and micro enterprises is less than 3%, which is significantly better than the level of 4.81% in OECD countries. At the same time, large and medium-sized private enterprises have gradually improved in terms of access to credit and financing in the stock and bond markets. In 2022, the public offering and listing (IPO) of Chinese enterprises will rank first in the world, accounting for 50% of the funds raised.
Regarding how the financial sector will continue to support the private economy in the next step, Guo Shuqing talked regarding several aspects. One of them is to increase the inclination of monetary policy to private enterprises, maintain the effective growth of total credit, and promote the reduction of comprehensive financing costs.
In fact, in the recent meetings of the People’s Bank of China, there are arrangements to support the development of private enterprises. The 2023 People’s Bank of China Work Conference held on January 4 proposed, “Insist on treating enterprises of all types of ownership equally, and guide financial institutions to further solve the financing problems of private small and micro enterprises.” The 2022 Fourth Quarter Regular Meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China held at the end of December last year also mentioned that “strive to make financial support for private enterprises commensurate with the contribution of private enterprises to economic and social development.”
Wang Youxin, a senior researcher at the Bank of China Research Institute, said in an interview with a reporter from the Securities Daily that the private economy plays an important role in my country’s economic and social development, and has played an important role in contributing tax revenue, promoting economic development, technological innovation, and promoting employment. . At present, my country’s economic development is facing certain pressure. At this time, it is even more necessary to increase financial support for private enterprises, effectively reduce financing costs, stimulate the vitality of market players, and promote the realization of the goal of stabilizing the macroeconomic market.
“In recent years, thanks to the joint efforts of regulatory authorities and banking and financial departments, credit resources have obviously been tilted towards small and micro enterprises and private enterprises, with increased volume, expanded coverage, and reduced prices. More importantly, banking and financial institutions are resolving the problem of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises. Progress has been made in difficult and expensive financing, and service capabilities have been steadily improved.” Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at the Financial Market Department of China Everbright Bank, told the Securities Daily reporter, but from the perspective of the total stock, the financial resources obtained by private enterprises and small and micro enterprises and their contributions are still far away. It cannot be fully matched, and more support is still needed.
As for how monetary policy should support private enterprises, Wang Youxin said that in the future, we should focus on the total and structural functions of monetary policy tools and increase support for private enterprises. From the perspective of the total amount, it is necessary to maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity, dredge the monetary policy transmission mechanism, reduce the circular chain, effectively reduce financing costs, and improve financing availability. From a structural point of view, we should actively do a good job of “addition”, make precise efforts, make good use of inclusive small and micro loan support tools, etc., and guide financial institutions to increase support for private enterprises.
Last year, the People’s Bank of China continued to release the efficiency of the reform of the loan market quotation rate (LPR), which led to a significant decline in the actual loan interest rate and a significant reduction in corporate financing costs. According to recent data released by the People’s Bank of China, in the first 11 months of 2022, the new lending rate of financial institutions will be 4.51%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.56 percentage points. Among them, the corporate loan interest rate was 4.19%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.42 percentage points.
Regarding how to further promote the reduction of comprehensive financing costs, Zhou Maohua believes that, first of all, in terms of monetary policy, it is necessary to continue to adopt aggregate tools and structural tools to guide financial institutions to reduce the financing costs of the real economy; secondly, guide financial institutions to optimize the structure of assets and liabilities, and further Release the space for fee reduction and profit sharing; finally, continue to tap the potential of LPR reform.
(Editor: Wen Jing)
