How can the construction of the rural financial system move toward high-quality modernization?
In 2015, China is in a pivotal year for deepening financial reform. In order to thoroughly explore the situation and tasks facing China's rural financial development, on April 26, the China Rural Financial Development Forum, hosted by the Finance Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council and co-organized by units including Postal Savings Bank of China and the China Financial Education Development Foundation, was held in Beijing, with the theme “New Tasks and New Development of China's Rural Finance under the New Normal.” On that day, the forum also released the “China Rural Financial Development Report 2014.”
It is reported that, centering on deepening China's rural financial reform, the Finance Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council has since 2012 visited more than 20 provinces and cities in China's eastern, central and western regions, conducted surveys of departments at all levels and financial institutions, and carried out comparative research combined with a large amount of statistical data. The “China Rural Financial Development Report 2014” is one of its interim results. Zhang Chenghui, the report's lead author and director of the Finance Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council, gave a special presentation at the meeting on the report's main judgments and recommendations.
Li Wei, director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, pointed out in his opening speech at the forum that since 2003, through improving the management system and the property rights system, rural credit cooperatives have made remarkable progress and have become an indispensable main force supporting agriculture at the grassroots level. The next step is to further deepen reform around implementing the requirements of the “Four Comprehensives,” build a high-quality modern rural financial system, and promote agricultural and rural modernization, with the focus on improving the financial service system, strengthening risk control capabilities, and reinforcing the foundation for the sustainable development of rural finance.
Wu Xiaoling, deputy director of the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress, called for promoting rural finance through development in three aspects. First, expand collateral and develop credit mutual-aid combinations to expand credit-enhancement methods; second, solve the problem of information asymmetry through internet technology and issue financial company licenses to promote the development of agricultural product supply chain finance; third, guide commercial capital into rural finance through policy-based finance. Wu Xiaoling particularly pointed out that the reform of policy-based financial institutions should establish an incentive-compatible support mechanism through methods such as implementing capital-constrained supervision and separate accounting.
From the perspective of developing direct financing, Jiang Yang, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, introduced the unique role of the capital market in supporting agricultural technological innovation, intensive and large-scale industrial operation, and increasing farmers' property income. In the next step, the CSRC will increase the intensity of capital market services for agriculture, rural areas and farmers, continuously increase the supply of financial services suited to the characteristics of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, support futures operating institutions in providing small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises with comprehensive businesses such as cooperative hedging, pricing services and warehouse receipt services, support the development of agriculture-related investment funds, promote innovation-driven development of agricultural industrialization, improve the listing mechanism for futures and options varieties, do a good job in pilot work on agricultural product futures and options, and raise the quality and level of the futures market in serving agriculture, rural areas and farmers.
In addition, experts and scholars from institutions such as the Rural Economy Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, the China Banking Association, Postal Savings Bank of China, Renmin University of China, and China Agricultural University gave special speeches and reports respectively.