Since 2019, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has continued to increase financial support for the manufacturing industry to promote its transformation and upgrading. As of the end of the first quarter, it ranked first in both the balance and increment of loans to manufacturing industry, with the former over RMB1.4 trillion, among which over RMB600 billion was granted to the advanced manufacturing, up 5% from the beginning of the year, higher than the average growth rate of the Bank’s corporate loans.

The responsible person of the Bank said, ICBC had a traditional advantage in serving the manufacturing industry, to which the Bank gave priority when serving the real economy and advancing economic transformation and upgrading. In recent years, the Bank has continued to do a better job in extending credit to the manufacturing industry, with more credit granted to advanced manufacturing, and pushed forward the transition from old to new economic growth drivers. In the first three months of this year, ICBC increased loans to new economic engines of advanced manufacturing, happiness industry and internet of things by a total of RMB70.9 billion from the beginning of the year, which accounted for 21% of the Bank’s increment of corporate loans.

Moreover, ICBC has been actively building a comprehensive service system for the manufacturing industry. Taking into account its financial needs for transformation and upgrading, the Bank actively developed diversified financial services such as financial advisors, bond underwriting, debt restructuring, leasing and factoring, wealth management and investment, and industry funds, so as to serve the manufacturing industry with a full line of products in multiple channels. For example, ICBC participated in debt-for-equity swaps at manufacturing enterprises, underpinned the mixed-ownership reform of state-owned enterprises and the optimization of the financial structure of private enterprises, and assisted China’s private enterprises of automobile and new energy in expanding their industrial layout. It issued more than RMB20 billion worth of debt financing instruments for manufacturing enterprises as a lead underwriter. Furthermore, it worked together with the State Information Center to carry out financing innovation for small and micro manufacturing enterprises. In the first quarter, ICBC saw its outstanding loans in terms of inclusive finance grew by RMB58.2 billion or 19% from the beginning of the year, which was 3.6 times as high as that of the same period of last year.