Xinjiang pilot on agricultural machinery leasing: 30% down payment on farm machinery purchases, interest on the balance subsidized
Recently, a pilot project on financial leasing of agricultural machinery, jointly carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Bank of China Financial Leasing Company, landed in Xinjiang, with 17 cotton pickers all delivered and put into use before the arrival of the new cotton-picking season. This marks that China's agricultural financial leasing business has taken a substantive step forward, and has also opened up a new path for solving the problems of farmers lacking funds and finding loans difficult when purchasing large agricultural equipment.
30% down payment on farm machinery purchases, interest on the balance subsidized
In mid-September in Tacheng, Xinjiang, white cotton blossoms freely across the fields. "This year's cotton picking has to run from September 20 to November 30, and the orders were signed long ago." Bai Jiuhui, chairman of the Kangwang Agricultural Machinery Professional Cooperative in Sidaohezi Township, Shawan County, held up a thick stack of orders to show the reporter. What made Bai Jiuhui happiest was that the cotton pickers newly purchased this year had arrived.
"One cotton picker can do the work of 1,200 cotton pickers in a day." Bai Jiuhui explained that it takes a cotton picker three to four days to harvest one mu; a cotton picker can harvest 300 mu a day without any problem.
Cotton pickers are highly efficient, and not cheap either: one machine costs more than 3 million yuan. Looking at the several cotton pickers parked in Bai Jiuhui's yard, the reporter repeatedly exclaimed that Old Bai really was rich.
"I didn't buy this entirely with my own money; I don't have that kind of means. It's all thanks to the agricultural machinery leasing pilot project run by the Ministry of Agriculture and ABC Leasing in Shawan County that I can afford a new cotton picker." Bai Jiuhui said.
It turned out that for one cotton picker costing 3.25 million yuan, Bai Jiuhui paid only a 30% down payment, and the remaining amount was paid by ABC Leasing to the agricultural machinery seller; Bai Jiuhui only had to repay this amount to ABC Leasing over 3 years. "Because it is a pilot project, the interest during these 3 years is subsidized by a Ministry of Agriculture fiscal project; in addition, I also enjoyed a 400,000 yuan agricultural machinery subsidy. The Party's policies are truly good!" Bai Jiuhui said sincerely.
Li Jianhua, director of the Department of Finance of the Ministry of Agriculture, explained that in order to solve the problems of farmers finding it difficult to buy machinery and obtain loans, the agricultural machinery financial leasing work selected cotton pickers and sugarcane harvesters for pilots in Xinjiang and Guangxi respectively. The Ministry of Agriculture innovated its method of fiscal support for agriculture, arranging dedicated interest discount funds for agricultural machinery leasing to provide fiscal subsidies for the interest portion of the agricultural machinery leasing pilot, so as to further reduce farmers' machinery purchase costs.
In Shawan County, a total of 17 cotton pickers were purchased this year through this financial leasing method. Zhu Qingjiang, head of the Xinye Agricultural Machinery Service Cooperative in Liumaowan Township, is also a beneficiary of the pilot project. "This method is really great. Coming up with more than 3 million yuan at once to buy new machines is unaffordable. But spread over 3 years, repaying six or seven hundred thousand a year is still acceptable. In the past we could only find ways to raise money to buy one or two; now we can immediately put together a work service team."
Zhu Qingjiang's confidence in repaying the money came from the returns of the cotton pickers. "A cotton picker charges 150 yuan per mu and can earn a net 800,000 to 1 million yuan a year, so paying it off in 3 years is no problem!"
Lu Mingxue, Party secretary of Liumaowan Township, told the reporter that in previous years at this time, cotton pickers had already come from all over the country one after another, but now the number of cotton pickers has greatly decreased. Compared with manual cotton picking, machine cotton picking saves costs and increases efficiency by at least more than 100 yuan per mu on a comprehensive calculation. Therefore, these cotton pickers are especially popular and in short supply.
The pilot is expected to be further expanded
Li Weiguo, director of the Department of Agricultural Mechanization of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that after more than ten years of rapid development of China's agricultural machinery, new types of agricultural business entities have an increasingly strong demand for large agricultural machinery and high-performance, compound machines, which is also the major trend for future agricultural machinery development. On the other hand, agricultural mechanization in cotton, sugarcane and other sectors is relatively weak, and affected by the shortage of rural labor and rising labor costs, there is also an urgent need to raise the level of mechanization. "However, these large agricultural machines generally have a very high value per unit. Even with state subsidies for agricultural machinery purchases, the financial pressure on farmers or cooperatives to buy them in full is still very heavy, and they generally lack collateral recognized by banks, so the difficulty of obtaining loans can be imagined."
It is understood that the agricultural machinery leasing business has a history of several decades in agriculturally developed countries in Europe and America, and is the preferred way for farmers to purchase and use agricultural machinery and equipment. In China, the financial leasing business has only begun to form an upsurge in recent years, and there has been no substantive breakthrough in the agricultural machinery field.
Chen Peihua, president of the Agricultural Bank of China Financial Leasing Company, told the reporter that the Xinjiang cotton picker leasing project reached a scale of more than 50 million yuan. In this pilot, ABC Financial Leasing fully considered the characteristics of the industry and farmers' needs in product design, transaction model, risk control and other aspects, and innovatively designed personalized products for cotton picker leasing. In handling the business, it seized the farming season and pushed forward progress to ensure that the machinery delivery was completed before the cotton picking season.
Li Jianhua said that after the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on the Development of Financial Services for Agriculture, Rural Areas and Farmers" this year, the Ministry of Agriculture worked hard to seek breakthroughs in loan interest discounts, innovation in collateral, agricultural guarantees, agricultural insurance, financial leasing and other aspects. "To solve the problems of farmers finding financing difficult and financing expensive, relying only on fiscal input will not work; we still need to give full play to the role of the market. We hope that through this pilot, we can explore a path in which fiscal funds leverage finance and small money moves big money, better give play to the role of financial instruments and the market, and realize the organic combination of fiscal support for agriculture and financial support for agriculture. The pilot project has universal significance for the purchase of large agricultural machinery in China, and in the future we will study expanding it to a broader scope."