Premier urges banks to better serve small businesses

2018-06-21
english.gov.cn

“Banks should change their mindset and follow the economic and industrial trends, to provide better services for small and micro enterprises,” Premier Li Keqiang said at the State Council executive meeting on June 20.

While stressing measures to ease financing difficulties for small and micro businesses, Premier Li said these enterprises are the backbone for employment, with strong market vitality.

According to the Premier, the government will stick to a prudent and neutral monetary policy, keep sufficient and appropriate liquidity, maintain financial stability, and strengthen policy coordination to boost market confidence, employment and reasonable growth.

He said that targeted measures should be in place to solve financing difficulties and lower costs for small and micro businesses, to stabilize market expectation amid uncertainties in international trade.

Opening services to micro businesses can enhance the competitiveness of the financial industry, which is also the lifeblood of banks in the future, the Premier stressed.

It has been almost a year since China’s five major commercial banks set up their inclusive finance departments. To sum up their achievements, the feelings of micro companies and other market entities matter more than their pure book value.

“Big banks will not have a future without serving small businesses, which should be embedded into every aspect of the banks,” the Premier said.

To open up wider, the first step for the financial industry is to reform itself, he added.

In a previous inspection, a manager of an environmental protection enterprise told Premier Li that they failed to borrow from banks because the company was young, in spite of their prosperous development.

Then the Premier advised him to apply for “green credit”, but the company’s managers and local officials barely knew the policy.

Premier Li recalled the story and asked for greater attention to market entities’ voices.

He urged favorable policies for easing the financing problems of small enterprises to be issued as soon as possible, and to be constantly improved in implementation.

By the year’s end, related authorities should make reports on this matter, the Premier said.