General Office of State Council, Several Current Opinions on Promoting Economic Development with Financial Policies

2 Encourage financial institutions in the banking industry to, provided that risks are under control, give credit support to enterprises that have relatively good fundamentals and credit records, and that have competitiveness, market share and orders from buyers but encounter temporary operational or financial difficulties. Support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Allow financial institutions to engage in buyer's renminbi credit for export business. Increase the credit support for industry move and rural areas
(Article 2).

3(a) Promote the steady development of the futures market, and launch in the first instance new types of commodity futures that are commensurate with the needs of national economic development such as steel and
rice crop.

(b) Expand the issuance scale of bonds, and actively develop debt financing instruments such as enterprise bonds, corporate bonds, short-term financing bills and medium-term paper. Priority shall be given to the issuance of bonds that are related to infrastructure, the improvement of people's livelihood and ecological environment, and post-disaster reconstruction. Actively encourage listed companies that participate in key state construction projects to issue corporate bonds and convertible bonds. Develop collective bonds of SMEs, and launch pilot projects of short-term financing bills of SMEs in a steady manner. Promote the pilot entry of listed commercial banks into the bond market of stock exchanges. Consider the issuance of renminbi bonds in China by overseas organisations and enterprises, and permit Hong Kong enterprises or financial institutions with relatively more business operations in the mainland to issue renminbi bonds in Hong Kong (Article 3).

4(a) Encourage insurance companies to develop microinsurance and product quality insurance for the agricultural industry and rural areas. Steadily develop insurance related to housing and automobile consumption. Actively develop contractor's all risk insurance and engineering insurance. Consider opening the short-term export credit insurance market, attract commercial insurance companies to join market competition and support export trade.

(b) Encourage insurance companies to purchase treasury bonds, financial bonds, enterprise bonds and corporate bonds. Guide insurance companies to invest in infrastructure projects such as transport, communications and energy projects, and rural infrastructure projects in the form of creditor's claims. Promote the investment in the equity of large state-owned leading enterprises by insurance companies, especially the equity of leading enterprises concerning national strategy such as enterprises in the energy and resource industries (Article 4).

5(a) Allow commercial banks to grant loans to domestic and overseas enterprises for mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Improve the tax policies on enterprise M&A, and actively promote M&A and reorganisation of enterprises.

(b) Launch the pilot project for real estate investment trusts. Steadily promote novel bond market trading instruments and relevant financial products. Launch pilot project revenue bonds.

(c) Strengthen the encouragement and guidance of social funds. Issue measures for the administration of equity funds (Article 5).

6 Raise the foreign exchange settlement ratio for payment of exports received in advance by general enterprises from 10% to 25%. Payment of exports received in advance in one single transaction of a relatively small amount shall not be subject to foreign exchange settlement limits. The annual amount of deferred payment by enterprises shall be raised from not exceeding 10% of the foreign exchange payment for imports in the preceding year to not exceeding 25% of the said amount
(Article 6).

7 Authorise financial institutions to restructure, and reduce or exempt (a portion of) the loans to SMEs and agricultural loans that fulfil certain criteria (Article 8).