Beijing
The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), one of the country’s biggest lenders, is planning to beef up its credit support to poverty-stricken counties in pursuit of winning the battle against poverty. The lender will issue no less than 100 billion yuan (about 14.3 billion U.S. dollars) of loans to 832 poverty-stricken counties this year, with the highest loan growth rate within the bank, according to a guideline released by the ABC. Special steps will be taken to help lift poor regions out of poverty, including meeting credit demands in full, adopting preferential interest rate policies and boosting their services. By the end of February, the outstanding loans that the bank had issued to the 52 poor regions totaled 59.9 billion yuan.—Agencies
