Wu Fulin, Vice Chairman and President of China Eximbank introduced the Bank’s efforts to serve the real economy and answered questions from reporters on the 257th regular press conference held by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) in Beijing on 23 July.

　　President Wu Fulin stated that since the beginning of this year, facing the severe impacts and challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to China’s economic and social development, China Eximbank resolutely implemented the policies and decisions made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, gave full play to its role and spared no effort in expanding the breadth and depth of its financial services. The Bank took active measures in supporting the prevention and control of the pandemic, the resumption of work and production, the steady growth of foreign trade, and the development of manufacturing and micro and small businesses. By the end of June, the Bank’s outstanding loan balance reached RMB4.14 trillion, up by 16.8% year on year, with record highs in the volume of RMB loan disbursement and credit growth. The Bank works hard to fully play its role of making counter-cyclical adjustment.

　　Giving top priority to stabilizing foreign trade in response to the pandemic, China Eximbank has been increasing credit disbursement to the foreign trade sector. By utilizing its new lending scheme and funds recollected from due loans, the Bank injected new impetus to foreign trade and foreign investment to ensure the stability of industrial chain and supply chain. Moreover, the Bank introduced a series of unconventional and phasic credit policies and set up a special review and approval team to ensure the credit disbursement to foreign trade. As of the end of June, the accumulated loans provided by the Bank to stabilize foreign trade and foreign investment in the first half of the year topped RMB904.7 billion, an increase of 50.62% year on year.

　　To help enterprises fight the pandemic and resume work and production, China Eximbank earnestly implemented the special central bank lending for combating the pandemic, provided financial support to key companies in pandemic prevention and control, and made a provisional deferment arrangement for both principal repayment and interest payment for qualified micro and small businesses. At the end of June, the Bank issued RMB20 billion of themed bonds to help enterprises fight the pandemic and resume work and production. The Bank formulated 23 special measures to support Hubei’s pandemic prevention and control and economic and social development, and issued a RMB5 billion bond for economic recovery in Hubei Province.

　　In supporting manufacturing enterprises, China Eximbank fully leveraged its professional strengths and focused on increasing manufacturing loans. The initial RMB50 billion special relief fund was announced by the Bank to help enterprises get through hard times in a targeted manner. Based on the lists of key national manufacturing enterprises and green manufacturers, the Bank supported the manufacturing industry in cultivating the leading enterprises, forming a complete industrial chain, and strengthening the clusters. The Bank focused on the key areas of cutting-edge technology and facilitated the rapid and healthy development of relevant industries. In the first half of the year, the Bank’s outstanding balance of manufacturing loans increased by 12.23% from the beginning of the year. More than 100 enterprises were included in the bailout list, and over RMB20 billion was put in place.

　　As for micro and small businesses, following the requirements of increasing credit to micro and small businesses, improving the quality of financial services and reducing their borrowing costs, China Eximbank used wholesale funding to actively work with small- and medium-sized banks and guide them to provide precise financing services for micro and small companies. Meanwhile, as an innovation, the Bank started direct lending business to MSEs and improved its service. By the end of June, the outstanding balance of on-lending loans for micro and small businesses increased by RMB43.2 billion from the beginning of the year, a growth rate of nearly 82%, and benefited more than 46,000 businesses, which has doubled from the beginning of the year. Moreover, the Bank significantly reduced the interest rate of newly issued loans to micro and small businesses, which further lowered their financing costs.

　　President Wu Fulin pointed out that in the next stage, China Eximbank will continue to implement the important instructions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on stabilizing the overall performance of foreign trade and foreign investment, advance the work on coordinating the prevention and control of the COVID-19 and economic and social development, and further improve the quality and efficiency of financial services to the real economy. By so doing, the Bank will make greater contributions to ensuring “stability on the six fronts” and “security in the six areas”. Major efforts will be made in the following areas:

　　First, continue to increase credit support to foreign trade. The Bank will give full play to the positive role of import and export credit and allocate more credit funds to stabilize foreign trade, help enterprises secure the market, make sure that agreements are honored and more orders are obtained. The Bank will finance export companies in their domestic sales to support their activities in transforming their manufacturing capability for domestic consumption upgrading. The Bank will intensify efforts to support key foreign trade enterprises and help improve the fundamentals and the level of modernization of the foreign trade industry by encouraging leading enterprises in the industry chain and supply chain to spur on the development of supporting companies, and by assisting core enterprises in helping upstream and downstream enterprises. The Bank will better synergize with new forms and models of foreign trade such as cross-border e-commerce firms and foreign trade comprehensive service providers to enhance the development potential of foreign trade.

　　Second, step up support for key areas and weak links. The Bank will continue to strengthen financial services in manufacturing, new infrastructure and other fields, focus on supporting the building of an independent, controllable, safe and reliable domestic production and supply system, and enhance key technical capabilities and core manufacturing competencies. Through expanding the coverage of cooperation with on-lending banks and actively working on supply chain financing, the Bank will continue to provide better financial services for micro and small businesses and improve the availability of funds for them. The Bank will promote the economic, trade and investment cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative and fully implement the G20 DSSI for the poorest countries to help relevant countries overcome difficulties.

　　Third, further strengthen the cooperation among bank, government, insurance and enterprise. To this end, the Bank will implement the work plan of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, protecting businesses and stabilizing foreign trade jointly issued with the Ministry of Commerce and signed with local governments, make good use of the cooperation mechanism for stabilizing foreign trade with Sinosure, and give full play to the coordinated and concerted efforts of ministries and commissions, local governments and other financial institutions. The Bank will make greater efforts in marketing high-quality clients and key projects, and improve work on project reserve and service plan, so as to play a better role in serving the real economy.