Treasury bonds protect rural residents' savings

CHONGQING -- It was a big day for Peng Xuefeng, from a remote village in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, as he purchased 50,000 yuan (about $7,135) in treasury bonds in November. He said it was not a hasty decision.

"Some bank workers came to our village and taught us about treasury bonds. I came to know that treasury bonds are a kind of financial product with low risk and high interest rates. They are perfect for us farmers who care about long and stable yields," Peng said.

Living in Jin'e village in Banan district, Peng makes a living by planting radishes. His annual income is about 8,000 yuan. The 50,000 yuan he used to buy the bonds was previously a term deposit. This sum of money is critical for a rural family like Peng in case of an emergency.

After learning that the interest rate of treasury bonds is higher than that of term deposits, Peng decided to withdraw his hard-earned savings and make the purchase.

The 50,000-yuan 5-year treasury bonds can yield a profit of about 7,500 yuan for Peng.

Ma Chengzi, a villager of Zhongyi township, Shizhu Tujia autonomous county, bought 40,000-yuan 5-year treasury bonds in July after joining in financial management courses provided by local banks in his township.

In the past, rural residents rarely had enough awareness of risk prevention and lacked financial management knowledge. Some who were eager to increase their income through financial investment were easily lured by illegal fund-raising activities, resulting in the loss of their hard-earned money.

Due to the lack of information and financial knowledge, Chinese rural residents, those in remote and poverty-stricken areas in particular, have long been unaware of government bonds. With the deepening of the poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategies, providing rural residents with more access so that they can obtain more income and protect their earnings has become the focus of the work of local governments.

To achieve the goal, some areas in China have begun to promote treasury bonds among people in the countryside.

Since 2018, Chongqing Operations Office of the People's Bank of China has been popularizing knowledge of treasury bonds in counties and townships in the Three Gorges Dam area, mountainous areas, ethnic minority communities and poverty-stricken areas. Local cooperative banks also help publicize related knowledge in banks and even farms and villages.

"Since more and more rural residents have shaken off poverty, it is necessary to keep their income increasing, while these activities enable them to obtain basic financial knowledge," said Wang Jinjun, director of the business office of the Zhongyi Township branch of the Postal Savings Bank of China.

It is also an important method to consolidate the achievements in poverty relief in western China, a major battlefield against poverty, Wang said, adding that, in a bid to ensure all rural residents have access to treasury bonds, local banks sometimes start to sell the bonds one day in advance.

So far, the financial knowledge popularization activities have achieved good results in Chongqing. In 2018, more than 46,700 rural people bought 1.66 billion yuan of treasury bonds. From January to September, a total of 3.16 billion yuan of treasury bonds were sold, 1.69 times the total amount over the same period last year.

Experts suggest that as long as rural residents choose normal financial institutions for their investment, such as buying bonds or other financial management products, their assets will be better protected and they will acquire higher yields.