Research Report on the Current Financing Situation
Research Report on the Current Financing Situation I. Basic Development of the Private Economy in the Four Regions I.1 Jiangsu Province By the end of 2000, the total number of privately-owned enterprises (POEs) in Jiangsu Province reached 174,000 with a total number of employees of 2.342 million and a registered capital of RMB 94.864 billion. In 2000, the private economies of the province contributed RMB170 billion to GDP, representing 20% of the total GDP of the province. Currently, the total value of taxes paid by self-employed businesses (SEBs) has exceeded 12% of all taxes of the province and their labour force accounts for 16.7% of the total of the province. In terms of industrial structure, NSEs mainly concentrate in the manufacturing, wholesale/retail and restaurant sectors. In terms of regional distribution, 47% of them are found in the five cities of Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou and Zhenjiang. I.2 Zhejiang Province Over the past 20 years of reform and opening up, Zhejiang Province developed from the previous agricultural province with a weak economic foundation to the present industrial province with fairly developed light industry and processing industry. Its aggregate economy has risen from the 12th to the 4th in China. One of the major reasons why Zhejiang has become the fastest developing province in China’s economic development is its active promotion of the development of SEBs. At present, the private economy has become a major component of Zhejiang economy, and the proportion of such economy is as high as 80% in some areas. In 1999, the total number of self-employed businesses in Zhejiang was 1.6444 million, with a workforce of 2.8143 million people; while the total number of POEs in Zhejiang was 146,400, with 340,400 investors and a workforce of 1.5785 million people. The proportion of total workforce in the self-employed and privately-run economies (SPEs) was 16% of the total in the province. Total value of registered capital of SPEs reached RMB120.36 billion, exceeding the net assets of all state-owned industrial and commercial enterprises in Zhejiang Province. In 1999, the total value of industrial output by SPEs amounted to RMB399.34 billion. It was 45% of total value of industrial output in the whole province and represented a growth rate of 25.8% over that of the previous year. In terms of regional distribution, the non-state economy has changed the previous echelon form of development characterised by faster development in the coastal areas and slow growth in the inland regions. The strength of SPEs in Ningbo and Hangzhou has already caught up with that in Wenzhou and Taizhou. In terms of sectoral structure, there is still a concentration in the secondary industry and the commercial wholesale, retail and restaurant services of the tertiary industry. I.3 Shanghai Municipality By the end of 1999, there were 188,800 self-employed industrial and commercial households (SICHs) in Shanghai. They employed a total workforce of 233,800 people, owned a total capital of RMB1.84 billion, and realised an annual output value of RMB1.23 billion. Meanwhile, there were 110,000 POEs with a registered capital of RMB78.06 billion, a workforce of 1.163 million people and an accumulative annual output of RMB29.55 billion. The total values of annual output and sales of NSEs in Shanghai rose by 30% over that of the previous year, representing 5% of the total GDP. Total taxes paid by them reached RMB4.88 billion, representing &nb Research Report on the Current Financing Situationsp;11.2% of the local fiscal revenue. One of the distinctive characteristics of non-state economic development in Shanghai is its large size. In 1999, the average registered capital of POEs was RMB 710,000, more than that in the other three provinces (RMB 685,000 in Zhejiang, RMB 545,000 in Jiangsu and RMB 428,000 in Shandong). As importance was attached to SPEs by all district governments, their development tended to become balanced between city districts and suburban counties, which corrected the previously imbalanced development concentrated in suburban counties. In terms of industrial structure, more and more POEs are engaged in manufacturing and technology industries. The number of those involved in the primary and secondary industries rose rapidly and the rate of growth exceeded that in the tertiary industry.I.4 Shandong Province In 1999, the total number of SICHs and POEs in Shandong Province was 2.995 million which employed a total workforce of 6.718 million, owned a total registered capital of RMB23.09 billion, produced a total output of RMB68.36 billion and paid a total tax of RMB5.55 billion, representing 13.7% of local fiscal revenue of the province. Based on our survey, the NES has turned out to be the most active and the fastest developing sector in the regions. Since 1997, the economic growth pulling role of the state-owned enterprise (SOEs) has obviously weakened as a result of asset restructuring, labour reduction and product-structure adjustment in a large number of SOEs. In contrast, China’s NES has developed rapidly and become a vital force in sustaining growth of the national economy. In 1999, the growth rate of tax revenue paid by SEBs in Shanghai was 20 percentage points higher than that of the whole municipality. In Jiangsu, the average annual growth of taxes paid by SPEs per annual reached 32% over the past few years. In Shandong Province, the proportion of taxes paid by SPEs to the provincial fiscal revenue rose from 11.5% in 1996 to 13.7%. In particular, while SOEs laid off a large number of workers and were generally incapable of absorbing any new labour force, the NES served as an important channel to absorb the laid-off workers and lighten employment pressure. By the end of 1999, SEBs in Shanghai and Jiangsu recruited an accumulative of 228,000 and over 500,000 laid-off workers respectively. During 1998-1999, Shandong Province re-employed 280,000 laid-off workers. The picture in the four regions demonstrates that the NES has played an important role in promoting market competition, improving commodity supply and services, facilitating commercialisation of science and technology results and co-ordinating state-owned enterprise reform. II. Main Measures Adopted by Local Governments to Promote Development of the NES As the NES is playing an increasingly important role in economic growth and system reform, local governments have strengthened their support to the NES over the past few years. In particular, they have formulated certain policies to solve financing difficulty of NSEs. Such supportive policies mainly cover three aspects. II.1 Establishing Guaranty Agencies To support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), under the enthusiastic advocation of relevant departments of the Central Government, local governments at all levels are focusing their effort on setting up credit guarantee agencies for small and medium-sized enterprises. Such guarantee agencies are regarded as a breakthrough point for solving the problem of financing difficulty. For example, except Research Report on the Current Financing Situation in specific cities, all the 13 cities under the direct jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province have set up credit guarantee agencies for SMEs. There are 14 such agencies in the whole province, holding a total value of RMB 400 million in registered capital. In 2000, they issued letters of guarantee to over 200 enterprises, with an accumulative number of over 1800 and a total value of RMB 2.5 billion. Based on incomplete statistics, by September 2000, over 50 guarantee agencies were set up in the cities, counties (districts) and townships in Zhejiang Province. They owned a total value of RMB 218 million in registered capital and issued over 1490 guarantees with a total value of RMB 771 million in favor of over 1,000 enterprises. At present, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong Provinces are actively engaged in preparation to establish provincial guarantee agencies. Shanghai Municipality has adjusted its public finance budgeting system and established credit guarantee agencies for SMEs supported mainly by the municipal treasury with the balance shared by all levels of public finance. By the end of 2000, this guarantee system has issued guarantee for 1,833 projects with a total value of RMB2.28 billion.II.2 Improving Financing Environment for NSEs Over the past few years, in order to improve the financing environment for NSEs, effort has been made by the governments of the four regions in the following aspects: First, strengthening contact and cooperation with banks. In order to support the development of privately-owned SMEs, relevant provincial and municipal departments of Jiangsu and Zhejiang have signed lending co-operation agreements with the Agricultural Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Minsheng Banking Corporation, on financing issues of SEBs. They have also maintained frequent contact with the banks to exchange views and analyse market changes and operational status of typical enterprises, and co-ordinated with the banks in their field studies on NSEs. Second, solving actual problems for small and medium-sized NSEs in the course of getting loans. For example, the provincial government of Zhejiang Province has issued several specific policies to help such enterprises solve the problems of multiple registration, multiple charges and repeated assessment for real estate mortgage in the borrowing process. The Government of Hangzhou City specified policies for NSEs to acquire public land assets, which has improved the financing environment for numerous township enterprises after their system reform. Third, establishing special agencies to provide services to SMEs. In order to support these enterprises in an active way, the Shanghai municipal government has established a financial accounting management centre and a SME service centre to provide them with information, consultancy and management services. Meanwhile, in order to fundamentally relieve financing stress from SMEs and put the market in order, the Shanghai municipal government plans to establish a standard credit rating agency and a credit system for small and medium-sized enterprise within 3-5 years. II.3 Setting up Venture Investment Fund In order to promote the development of small and medium-sized science and technology enterprises, many local governments have set up venture investment funds and venture investment companies. For example, Jiangsu Province has established a venture investment company with provincial government finance and started market trial operation, and major cities of the province also followed suit. The government of Zhejiang Province supported the establi Research Report on the Current Financing Situationshment of three venture investment companies and some of its city governments also set up renovation funds for SMEs. In Shanghai, the municipal government has built up a venture investment system, which includes certain specialised agencies such as Shanghai Chuangye Investment Company, Shanghai Science and Technology Investment Company, Shanghai Lianchuang Investment Management Company and Shanghai Technology Property Right Exchange. By the beginning of 2001, the total value of venture investment funds raised by Shanghai Municipality exceeded RMB 5 billion, while more than 40 various venture investment and management companies came into being.III. Financing Status and Problems of the Private Economy In general, with efforts made by all areas concerned, financing difficulty encountered by NSEs has been relieved to some extent. However, the problem has not been solved fundamentally. Based on statistics of Shanghai (Trade and Development) Service Centre for Small Enterprises, after a year of its establishment, 80% of its clients demanded financial assistance. In Jiangsu Province, the proportion of the outstanding balance of loans to SPEs in 1999 only took up 4.8% of the total. Although there was a small increase in 2000, it only reached 5.2%. In Zhejiang Province, the proportion of total lending by all commercial banks to township and privately-owned enterprises only took 6.5% of the total in 2000. The proportion of lending by urban commercial banks was slightly higher at 8.2%. In Wuxi City of Jiangsu Province, there were 6700 new POEs in 2000 with a total registered capital of RMB5.024 billion. However, new credit funds for them was only RMB54 million. There were 20 POEs with excellent performance that took part in the bank-enterprise co-operation project, but only three of them obtained loans, totalling RMB7 million. Obviously, this situation is tremendously out of line with the status of NES in the two provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. III.1 Banks Generally Compete for Large Enterprises and Reluct to give loans to Small Ones. Although the credit policy of the Central Bank encourages commercial banks to increase lending to SMEs, for safety considerations, however, all commercial banks compete for large clients and reluct to lend to small borrowers. This has created a situation where more than sufficient funds are made available to the large enterprises, whereas the small ones are unable to have financial support enough to get out of the corner. The consequence is capital abundance of both banks and large enterprises, resulting in significant increase in enterprise savings and loans flowing to consumption and stock market. Take Wuxi city for example, enterprise savings last year increased by about 17%, representing 52.5% of increased savings. Meanwhile, short-term lending by banks for housing and consumption increased by 38.3%, making up 51.9% of the total increase. In contrast, lending to industries only increased by 6.1%, remarkably lower than the 14.4% growth rate of industrial output. In addition, bill acceptance business has developed rapidly over the past few years, but it has also focused on the large enterprises, the banks hardly give any bill acceptance quota to the small ones. III.2 Discrimination against Private Ownership System Still Remains in Various Degree. Except in Zhejiang Province where the NES is universally accepted for the sake of its particular historical and cultural background, we found in those places of our study various degrees of discrimination against SEBs. With the long-term influence of the pl Research Report on the Current Financing Situationanned economy and traditional ideology, financial departments generally tend to "be afraid of" private ownership. Some localities reported that, for the same amount of a bank loan, if it was defaulted by a SOE, the bank staff may be free from any responsibility, but if it was defaulted by a POE, the bank staff may be investigated for responsibilities by the judicial organ. For the fear of the lending responsibility, the credit personnel acted very prudently in specific operations, which is featured in restrained loans, complicated procedures, harsh mortgage terms, overly strict requirements on mortgages and extremely low mortgage rate. Some POEs said that they usually had to spend a half year’s time obtaining a loan, thus having missed lots of business opportunities. With RMB550 million of its own capital and RMB1 billion of annual sales, Zhongda Industrial Group in Jiangsu Province was awarded the title of Excellent Enterprise by the Agricultural Bank of China Head Office and was granted a loan quota of RMB50 million. In practice, however, the business department of the Agricultural Bank of China only allowed a loan of RMB30 million to Zhongda Group.III.3 Guarantee Companies and Various Funds Are Utterly Inadequate. At present, there are over 340,000 SEBs in Shanghai. In the past two years, however, only over 2000 enterprises (including state-owned and shareholding enterprises) received financial services from the Shanghai Branch of China Investment Guarantee Company, the Technology Exchange, the venture investment companies and all kinds of district-and county-level guarantee funds. By the beginning of 2000, the proportion of financing loans obtained in all forms of guarantee only made up around 5% in Shanghai, of which loans to small enterprises merely took up 30%. In other words, loans obtained by small enterprises through the guarantee channel only accounted for 1.5%. In Zhejiang Province, despite a large number of guarantee agencies, most of them only have a registered capital ranging from RMB 3 to 5 million. Take the total registered capital as RMB 218 million and multiply it by five, it could only produce a guarantee capacity of RMB 1 billion, merely 1.1% of new loans in 2000 in the province. In Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, the registered capital of the 30,000 POEs was RMB 17.8 billion. If matched on a 1:1 basis, the working capital shortage would aggregate RMB 12 billion. However, the aggregate capacity of the guarantee agencies in the province was less than RMB 1.5 billion. Moreover, as generally reported by all localities, the guarantee funds are operating on thin ice because they cannot prevent risks for themselves. They have to meet too strict qualification appraisal and counter-guarantee requirements, and go through very complicated procedures, which not only add burden to enterprises but also let slip business opportunities. III.4 Maturity Schedule of B
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