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ICBC Works in Five Respects to Improve Quality and Efficiency on Serving Rural Revitalization
 

Through efforts in the five perspectives of policy, financing, product, service and technology, ICBC has assisted agriculture and rural areas in pursuing vigorous economic development, and farmers in living a better life. In the process of serving rural revitalization through finance, ICBC has demonstrated determination and made its own contributions.

Strengthening institutional and mechanism building to lay a solid foundation for serving agriculture, rural areas and farmers. ICBC has made financial support to rural revitalization a “top priority” project, strengthened the Group synergy for serving rural revitalization in top-level design, mechanism guarantee, strategy transmission, resource allocation and joint cooperation, and enhanced the transmission of the urban-rural interactive development strategy. In recent years, ICBC has formulated business policies on rural industry financing, urbanization, etc., providing strong guarantee for serving rural revitalization.

Actively supporting financing to agriculture, rural areas and farmers to promote rural industrial upgrading. To vigorously promote modernization of agriculture and rural areas, ICBC has been continuously increasing fund support. ICBC’s balance of loans for rural construction has grown to nearly RMB1.5 trillion, and the bank has underwritten and issued nearly RMB10 billion “rural revitalization bonds”, which have effectively supported upgrading of power grid infrastructure and road reconstruction and expansion in rural areas. Balance of loans for agricultural production approaches RMB900 billion, which have actively supported financing by farmers and agricultural enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Over the past three years, ICBC had expanded 130 agriculture-related industrial chains and injected nearly RMB20 billion funds. Nearly RMB200 billion financing was granted to nearly 300,000 farmers to assist them in increasing production, generating income and improving life.

Strengthening comprehensive services to improve rural financial service capability. Rural financial services are important foundation of rural revitalization. ICBC has deepened financial service layout in counties and expanded service coverage in villages and towns. Currently, ICBC has over 6,100 outlets in counties, with offline channels covering nearly 1,800 counties or over 85% of all counties in China. ICBC has installed nearly 10,000 self-service devices in villages and towns. For rural customers in counties, ICBC has especially launched the “Rural Revitalization Funong Card” to provide those customers with deposit, wealth management and loan services, as well as exclusive rights, serving nearly 40 million local people. In the meantime, by leveraging its advantage on online financial services, ICBC has especially launched the county version mobile banking to provide customers in counties with exclusive services featured by easy registration, broad coverage and excellent financial inclusion. Moreover, ICBC has brought the “One Thousand Experts Serving Small and Micro Enterprises” campaign to county-level sub-branches to provide financing, intelligence and business support for spring ploughing, farming preparation, exhibitions of seed enterprises, planting and breeding promotion, better use of forestry assets, construction of agricultural industrial parks, etc., in main agricultural production areas.

Enhancing technological empowerment to support building of digital countryside. ICBC has actively served transformation and upgrading of traditional industry models in rural areas, through the application of such technologies as Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI). Through the API open platform, ICBC has provided services like payment & settlement, fund supervision, product tracing, information management, services for the convenience of the people, e-mall, etc., to rural areas and farmers to enhance the development vitality of rural industries. By integrating agriculture-related data and applying “agriculture big data + FinTech”, ICBC has creatively launched the online credit financing product, the new-type online mortgage financing product based on the contractual right of land, etc., and has made the whole process of customer screening, business handling and risk control online and intelligent. For leading agricultural enterprises engaged in food, feed, breeding, etc., ICBC has provided enterprise-level digital infrastructure service, built scenes and further increased the availability of financing services to farmers and upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain.

Developing innovative featured products to improve the quality and efficiency of serving agriculture, rural areas and farmers. Based on the development level and characteristic industries of different regions, ICBC has vigorously developed innovative credit products, strengthened bank-government-enterprise cooperation, and focused on serving new-type agricultural business entities and building a regional characteristic product innovation model.

In developed cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, ICBC has actively used local economic advantages to support industrial development. For example, Shanghai Branch has laid down special financing plans for the B&B industry in Chongming, famers’ cooperatives, saffron farmers, etc.. Guangzhou Branch provides credit support to customers of Jiangnan Fruits & Vegetables Wholesale Market and Qingping Medicinal Materials Wholesale Market and so on through extension of industrial chains. Shenzhen Branch has granted loans to China Gas’s upstream customers, solving the difficulties of upstream and downstream SMEs in accessing financing.

In regions with large-scale agricultural operation, ICBC focuses on new-type agricultural business entities such as leading agricultural enterprises, family farms and farmers’ cooperatives, extending financial services to the end of the agricultural industry chain. For example, Henan Branch, by creatively adopting the “leading enterprise + grain planting cooperative + government + farmer household” supply chain model, assisted Henan Grain Investment Group Co., Ltd. in acquiring more than 200,000 tons of summer grain crops, which has solved the employment of more than 5,000 people. In conjunction with Jilin Province Agricultural Financing Guarantee Co., Ltd., Jilin Branch issued inclusive loans to business entities like family farms and farmers’ cooperatives in nine regions across the province. The program has supported hundreds of farmer households and agricultural business entities.

In other regions with advantaged characteristic industries, ICBC has provided scene-based financing plans according to  industry characteristics and customer needs. For example, Shandong Branch has launched a number of characteristic financing products including Taobao Loan, Greenhouse Loan, Ginger Loan, Agricultural Trade Loan, Green e-Loan, Farming Loan, Strong Village Loan, Tea Leave Loan, etc.. Fujian Branch, with a focus on serving the “8 + 1” characteristic industries in Ningde City, has launched regional characteristic products such as Sea Cucumber Loan, Fish Raft Breeding Loan, Large Yellow Croaker Loan and Ceramics Loan to grant loans to its ten major characteristic rural industries. Hubei Branch has developed “Shii-take Loan”, a pan-trade chain scene-based quick loan product, to provide financing support to quality upstream “commission buyers of shii-take”. Hunan Branch has created the quick loan product for aquaculture in large lakes, which has issued more than RMB100 million aquaculture loans.

In the “three regions and three prefectures” (the “three regions” refer to Tibet, four prefectures of southern Xinjiang-Hotan, Aksu, Kashi, and the Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of Kizilsu, and the areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces with large Tibetan populations; the “three prefectures” are Liangshan in Sichuan, Nujiang in Yunnan, and Linxia in Gansu), ICBC has developed characteristic credit products based on local advantaged resources. For example, Xinjiang Branch has built such characteristic scenes as Taxation Loan, Tobacco Loan, Reopen Loan, Textile Loan and Venture Guarantee Loan. Gansu Branch has actively developed business cooperation with local policy guarantee institutions and rolled out the “New Agricultural Credit Express” service.

ICBC will continue to focus on agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and contribute wisdom and resources to create a better life for millions of farmers and a beautiful tomorrow for rural areas.


(2021-07-20)
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