Banks, companies vow more support for rural revitalization

As China’s rural areas and farmers are seeing increasing demand for diversified and multi-level financial products and services, it is crucial to allocate more innovative financial resources and services to the key and weak spots of the agricultural sector so as to better support the progress of rural revitalization, officials and scholars said at the Financial Street Forum 2022 in Beijing on Wednesday.

This is also a major part of the country’s efforts to guide financial markets toward supporting the real economy, and financial institutions need to closely follow the development of the agricultural sector to better meet the differentiated financial needs of farmers with continuous innovation, said Fu Wanjun, president-designate of the Agricultural

Bank of China at a parallel session of the forum.

As the nation’s largest agricultural reserve company, China Grain Reserves Group has conducted a pilot program of digital yuan purchase and settlement for farmers since September 2021. Transactions are traceable and they aren’t delayed, Chi Jingtao, general manager of the company, said at the forum.

Besides banks and large-scale agricultural enterprises, private technology companies have also explored and developed innovative financial services to boost the growth of the agricultural sector.

For instance, the Beijing-based fintech company Duxiaoman launched an interest-free loan project in May 2019 to help farmers to develop special farming, aquaculture, homestead tourism and other special and green industries. After more than three years, Duxiaoman’s project has covered over 150,000 farmers from 242 villages.