The People's Bank of China issued a circular Monday demanding rural cooperatives to make efforts to improve their services to better support rural economic development and help farmers increase their income.
The circular says that rural cooperatives should pay close attention to resolving farmers' difficulties in getting loans. Their loans should be focused on supporting rural households and agricultural production, and be granted in accordance with farmers' actual demand in economic activities.
Meanwhile, rural cooperatives should help promote rural industrial restructuring, support industrialized rural management and support farmers' involvement in the circulation and processing of agricultural products.
According to the circular, in agriculture-dominated districts, rural cooperatives should put some 70 percent of their newly increased loans toward supporting farming households and agriculture; other districts should also raise the proportion of such loans in their total loans.
It also demands rural cooperatives to re-organize deposits to increase their capital resources while at the same time considering credit risks.
The central bank earlier announced that in the first half of this year, the central bank would increase its refinancing to rural cooperatives by 20 billion yuan, in an effort to help rural cooperatives step up their support to agriculture.
(People's Daily 04/10/2001)
