ABC plans tech, green, digital, pension finance

Agricultural Bank of China or ABC is working on formulating action plans to propel the development of "technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance and digital finance" as emphasized by the Central Financial Work Conference held in late October, its top executive said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency published on Tuesday.

"Developing the five sectors, as the meeting mentioned, is not only an inevitable requirement to promote high-quality economic and social development, but also a practical need to help the financial industry make up for its shortcomings to further expand," said Gu Shu, chairman of the lender.

"With a mindset of solving problems, we will focus on key issues and make precise efforts … The bank will make preferential policies and allocate more resources to some key areas, industries and clients, as well as optimize differentiated policy support for them."

As of the end of September, ABC's outstanding loans for strategic emerging industries exceeded 1.9 trillion yuan ($270 billion), up 54 percent from the start of the year. The corresponding figures for green loans were 3.8 trillion yuan and 42 percent.

ABC will focus more on its key responsibilities and main businesses, and continue to increase financial resource allocations for key fields like food security, rural industrial development and farmers' income growth, Gu said.

The lender will make full efforts to better serve China's national strategies and development of key areas and weak links to effectively promote high-quality economic development, he said.

The bank will also further efforts for transformation and innovation in a market-oriented, law-abiding manner. Besides, it will continue to enhance risk management, optimize digital risk control system, and strengthen processes to prevent and defuse risks in key areas, to ensure early detection, identification and intervention. The bottom line is guarding against systemic risks, he said.

Chang Haizhong, executive director of corporates at ratings agency Fitch Bohua, said the Central Financial Work Conference further clarified the key areas needing further allocation of financial resources, which is also the essential path for China to achieve independent innovation, industrial upgrading and the carbon goals, and thereby achieve high-quality development.