Casey
My friend Meagan Dietz just passed on to me an interesting news blurb about a new initiative to launch microfinance pilot programs in Beijing. Given my past blog entry, Beijing is the last place that I would have imagine microfinance to pop up in China. Even with all of the growth and development, there are millions (literally) of microentrepreneurs here, but I would have assumed that the loan size necessary to start a microenterprise would be so high that this wouldn't be the ideal place for microfinance to launch.
When I have some free time, I'm looking forward to going around to the small stands of drink vendors, snack makers, and bike fixers in my area to get a better idea of the credit demand. What is their daily cashflow? Where do they currently get their capital? What types of loan products would they need?
Check out the translation of the news blurb below (Thank you Zhu Bo for doing this translation):
Beijing to Launch MFI within 08
Beijing is expected to launch its first microfinance institution (MFI) before the end of 2008, on a trial basis, said Huo Xuewen, vice director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform in a recent press conference on Beijing’s financial development.
The coming MFI is called Beijing Credit Re-guarantee Co. It has a registered capital of CNY 1 billion, the majority of which is from city finances. A number of state-owned enterprises in Beijing will also become shareholders.
The vice director said only 5% of the group are large-sized enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises constitute the majority of the shareholders. Beijing now is trying various means to establish an “associated-finance”, promoting the growth of the medium and small-sized enterprises and solving their problems in funding.
In the two or three years, the share-holding investment market in Beijing is going to expand, said vice director. (Xiao Ren)
http://www.sinofile.net/
Casey..interesting post.
Will this new organization be some kind of loan guarantee organization like the SBA - http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/sbaloantopics/snapshot/index.html?
Posted by: Bhalchander Vishwanath | August 18, 2008 at 04:46 PM