(ATF) China Development Bank announced today that it plans to issue its first ‘Poverty Alleviation Bonds’ on the interbank market on Tuesday April 14, using a 1-year fixed interest rate, and funds raised to be mainly used by the CDB for efforts to relieve deep poverty.
The 11 billion yuan (US$1.56 billion) raised from the bond issue will be spent across regions to alleviate poverty, with an emphasis on infrastructure, it said.
Some 9.2-billion of the bonds will be issued in the interbank market, and at the same time through ICBC, the Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, Industrial Bank, Bank of Nanjing, Bank of Ningbo, Bank of Jiangsu, Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank, Shunde Rural Commercial Banks. Other contractor business outlets will sell special counter bonds to individual investors, plus corporates, financial institutions and others for the 1.8-billion-yuan first phase of Poverty Alleviation Bonds.
“The projects that will be supported by the funds raised in this bond are all projects that have a strong leading role in the economic and social development of poor areas,” the CDB official in charge of the bank told Economic Daily.
Among the projects are a potato-starch-processing project in Xiji County in Guyuan City, Ningxia. It will focus on acquisition of potatoes grown by poor households to try to lift local poor growers out of poverty and help them become more wealthy. According to estimates, the net income from planting one acre of potatoes can reach 3,000 yuan, and a poor household with a registered card can grow “escape poverty” by planting 2 acres of this crop.
Meanwhile, a project to construct the Weining-Weifeng Expressway in Guizhou aims to avoid traffic congestion in poor areas such as Weining and the national arterial road.
The person in charge told Economic Daily the CDB had built mechanisms since 2016 and found methods to tackle poverty alleviation. It has made practical moves, contributions, and sought practical results in targeted poverty alleviation by fully playing the role of financing projects.
Also this year, China Development Bank will provide loans to poor areas of not less than 200 billion yuan, which will be used to support poverty alleviation. Statistics show that as of the end of March, the bank has issued 82.7 billion yuan in poverty alleviation loans this year, including 27.9 billion yuan in key needy areas.
