New types of agricultural business entities will receive more financial "blood transfusions"

Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture, together with the Ministry of Finance, the People's Bank of China, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission and 11 financial institutions, jointly issued the "Joint Action Plan for Financial Support for New Types of Agricultural Business Entities", further increasing financial support for new types of agricultural business entities.

As China's agricultural modernization accelerates, new types of agricultural business entities have emerged in large numbers, and their demand for financial services is growing stronger by the day. Compared with the “smallholder economy” of individual households in the past, new types of agricultural business entities not only invest heavily in fixed assets, but also have large demand for working capital, and they need protection against both natural disasters and market risks.

The Plan proposes promoting the establishment across various regions of a number of financing guarantee institutions and re-guarantee institutions that are mainly funded by the government (including policy-based financial institutions) and specialize in agricultural credit guarantee business, and accelerating the building of an agricultural credit guarantee service network covering all provinces (regions and municipalities) nationwide.

In terms of agricultural insurance business, insurance institutions are encouraged to step up product innovation, develop multi-tiered, high-coverage insurance products that meet the needs of new types of agricultural business entities, actively and steadily carry out pilots such as target price insurance and weather index insurance, and encourage locally tailored pilots of insurance for specialty and advantageous agricultural products.

At present, China's new types of agricultural business entities are developing rapidly. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, as of the end of last year, there were 3.18 million large-scale operators with an operating area of more than 50 mu nationwide, 877,000 family farms, 1.289 million specialized cooperatives, 120,000 leading enterprises, and 1.15 million agricultural social service organizations.