BEIJING, March 4 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank has urged banks to support the real economy to restore development, expand credit access and cut financing costs to help them tide over difficulties arising from the novel coronavirus epidemic.
The People's Bank of China, together with the Ministry of Finance and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, held a meeting on financial support for epidemic control and economic growth on Tuesday.
After the epidemic outbreak, the financial system has issued 30 financial policies and measures on the epidemic prevention and control measures, which have ensured uninterrupted financial services and stabilized market expectations, said a statement on the meeting issued by the central bank on Wednesday.
While maintaining prudent monetary policies, the financial authorities will pay more attention to flexibility, keep reasonably sufficient liquidity and release the potential of the loan prime rate reform, the statement said.
The financial sector should make good use of the 300 billion yuan (about 43.17 billion U.S. dollars) in special refinancing funds to provide fast and accurate support to enterprises working on epidemic prevention and control, it said.
Financing support should be boosted for regions, industries and enterprises seriously affected by the epidemic, it said.
Lenders should improve their capacity to serve small and micro-businesses and make good use of the 500-billion-yuan re-lending and re-discount quotas and the 350-billion-yuan special loan quotas of the policy banks targeting private and smaller businesses with preferential interest rates, it said.
The financial sector will stick to the principle that "housing is for living in, not for speculation" and not use real estate as a short-term means of stimulating the economy, to maintain the "continuity, consistency and stability" of real estate financial policies, according to the meeting.
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