The first Chinese Micro-finance Summit opened on September 22 in Beijing. Professor Latifee, managing director of the Bengalis Grameen Trust, addressed the meeting and said that Citigroup will provide US$1.3 million via the organization to help 14,000 business women in middle and western China to get small loans and business training. 

The Grameen Trust is an international fund that brings forward staff training, technology, software and financial aid to more than 119 micro-finance projects in 35 countries and regions. Owning capital of US$540 million, the organization helps 1.4 million people in poverty get small loans and provides over US$10 million of loans in Asia through its micro-finance cooperators. Some 70 percent of the aiding projects have paid back 95 percent of their loans.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences set up the Poverty Relief Cooperative in 1993. In recent years, the cooperative introduced and promoted the work model of the Grameen Trust into China's poverty relief.  

Du Xiaoshan, head of the cooperative, said small loans will play an important role in China's financial system. Their receivers are usually not able to get aid from traditional financing. These loans although within the amount of US$400, sometimes even decide whether people can rid poverty or not.

According to Richard Stanley, president of the Citigroup China, micro-finance will give a hand to the company's poverty relief work. He added the company has been supporting micro-finance projects to help people in China's poverty areas in the past 25 years.

(China.org.cn by Feng Yikun, September 26, 2003)