Vice Premier Ma Kai at the opening ceremony of the 21st APEC Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Ministerial Meeting in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu Province, in September last year. (Photo : www.english.gov.cn)
Vice Premier Ma Kai has asked banks to increase their support to major infrastructure projects amid an economic slowdown by improving efficiency in lending to enterprises involved in the projects, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The vice premier made the call during his inspection tours of the projects on May 14, Thursday, in Shanghai.
Ma called on several branches of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, China Construction Bank and the Bank of Communications to prioritize financial lending to sectors engaged with the government in implementing infrastructure projects that include railways, water projects and emerging sectors.
The Chinese leader also told banks to provide financial support to small firms, tech companies and agriculture enterprises.
"The real economy and the financial sector rely on each other. We need to take all available measures to reduce financing costs for borrowers," Ma was quoted as saying.
China's economic growth slid to 7 percent in the first three months of the year, the lowest quarterly growth recorded since 2009, as the country's real estate market slowed down and exports decreased due to the unstable global market.
China's central bank has reduced the benchmark interest rate since November in an effort to reduce the financing costs for companies and offset the downward pressure in the economy. It has also dropped the reserve requirement ratio of banks two times since February this year.
The government also called on banks on May 15, Friday, to continue lending to struggling local government-financing vehicles to ensure that infrastructure projects get completed, according to an article published in nasdaq.com.
China's central bank, the finance ministry, and the banking regulator said in a joint statement that the funds could be used for projects which are already under construction and approved before Sept. 21, 2014.
