A special technical reform loan set up by Zibo city – located in East China's Shandong province – was recently promoted to the entire region in East China.
As an important industrial city, Zibo has taken up the responsibility of exploring the path of industrial reforms and upgrading.
Although technical reforms might be a useful way to achieve high-quality development, research has found that due to the difficulties in getting financing – especially for small and medium-sized enterprises – reforms have not been smooth.
To solve the problem, Zibo issued a special loan for technical reform on April 30, 2021. It provided full, zero-rate guarantees for eligible enterprises, subsiding them by grade, with a maximum period of three years for a loan facility.
As of March 10 this year, 2.44 billion yuan ($383 million) of special loans had been issued. This is said to have benefitted 201 technical reform projects and helped drive total investment in technical reform projects to 25.8 billion yuan, an increase of 22.5 percent year-on-year.
The special loan not only secured capital for the enterprises, but is also said to have promoted the accelerated development of the manufacturing industry, inspiring the confidence of entrepreneurs and improving the service of Party members and cadres.
According to local news, Zibo intends to add another 3 billion yuan to the special technical reform loan fund this year. This is expected to help pull in total social investment of 30 billion yuan, leading to an industrial output value of 100 billion yuan.
