China Development Bank issues $20b of poverty relief loans
China Development Bank (CDB), a development financial institution, has issued 142.9 billion yuan ($20 billion) of loans to support poverty relief efforts in the first eight months of this year.
The bank's total outstanding loans for poverty alleviation reached 1.17 trillion yuan by the end of August. It plans to issue loans worth 300 billion yuan for targeted poverty relief this year.
Founded in 1994, the CDB is designed to provide finance to major national projects and development strategies. It has stepped up support for the country's battle against poverty, which is one of the "three tough battles" that the country must win to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020.
By the end of the second quarter of 2019, the outstanding loans for poverty alleviation of development and policy banks accounted for more than half of total poverty relief loans in the whole banking sector, according to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
Meanwhile, the scale of China's debt financing instrument market has exceeded 11 trillion yuan (about $1.56 trillion), according to the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors.
In the first half of 2019, the amount of debt financing instruments issued by nonfinancial enterprises reached 3.2 trillion yuan, increasing about 30 percent year on year, NAFMII data showed.
To continuously improve and complete the system of poverty alleviation bills, China had issued five poverty alleviation bills with a value of 7.25 billion yuan in the first half of 2019. A total of 30 cumulative bills of 34.5 billion yuan had been issued by June.
Poverty alleviation bills are mainly used for industrial development and infrastructure construction in povertystricken areas.
By June, 61 cumulative firms had registered green debt financing instruments of 131.49 billion yuan while instruments totaling 62.62 billion yuan had been issued, the NAFMII said.
Meanwhile, Slovenia's central bank said on Wednesday it will impose restrictions on consumer loans in coming weeks to curb "excessive" credit growth and head off financial risks.
The ratio between a borrower's annual debt costs and their net income could no longer exceed 67pc, the Bank of Slovenia said.
The curbs will apply to loans to a maximum maturity of seven years.
The restriction will also apply to consumer real estate loans.