China's central bank to establish credit market department

China's central bank will set up a new credit market department in a bid to guide financial institutions to implement corresponding work focusing on technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance and digital finance, Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC) announced on Wednesday at a press conference. 

The establishment of the new department came as a means as the PBC will step up the financial support for major strategic and key areas and weak links across the economy with an emphasis placed on the above-mentioned five sectors, Pan said. 

In 2023, the central bank elevated the effectiveness of monetary policy in promoting economic restructuring, transformation and economic upgrade, while guiding domestic financial institutions to ramp up support for key areas and weak links, Pan said. 

He added that the growth rates of loans for inclusive small and micro enterprises, science and technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises, medium- to long-term loans for the manufacturing sector and green loans were significantly higher than the average growth rate of all loans.

Moving forward, Pan said that the PBC will continue to utilize the aggregate and structural functions of the monetary policy tools while further strengthening innovation. 

China has been continuously increasing financial support for major sectors contributing to economic growth in both science and technology. 

The National Financial Regulatory Administration issued a circular earlier on January 12, requiring greater efforts to improve financial services for tech companies.

The circular encourages banking and insurance institutions to establish branches in places where science and technology resources are concentrated, focusing on providing better financial services for tech firms.

Meanwhile, tolerance of non-performing loans to small and micro technology enterprises can be relaxed by no more than 3 percentage points compared with the other loans. Banking institutions are encouraged to increase credit issuance for technology startups on the prerequisite that risk is well under control, and scale up support in intellectual property pledge financing.