Since the beginning of this year, ICBC has followed the trend of national industrial upgrading and given greater credit support to environment protective industries and development of energy-saving technologies; especially to the projects concerning new kinds of energy and technology. Attempting to use finance to promote industrial upgrading and structure adjustment, ICBC is exploring a new way for finance to develop from its traditional model to a modern one. By the end of June 2009, the balance of ICBC's "green" credit projects had reached RMB 400 billion.
For ICBC's credit projects, the balance of loans to the four sectors of environment protection, energy saving, new energy sources exploitation and utilization, and promotion of other energy-saving and environment protective technologies have exceeded RMB 50 billion respectively. Meanwhile, performance of such loans is very satisfactory, as the non-performing loan ratio is only about 0.5%, lower than that of all loans and that of ordinary loans.
According to introduction of the related ICBC official, among the over 60 thousand enterprises which have received loans from ICBC, more than 99% have been recognized by the Ministry of Environmental Protection as environment friendly enterprises, enterprises with qualified environment protective facilities, and enterprises without violation of environment protection laws; the balance of loans to such enterprises also exceeds 99% of the total loan balance. The rest enterprises are under qualification review or whose qualification review has not completed.
Based on this, ICBC has also established criteria for categorizing loans, i.e., whether a project is energy-saving, adopts new energy and comprehensively uses the resource; and has also adopted the "remark of green credit projects" in its computer system which has completed categorization of all credit projects complying with the above criteria. For those projects that fail to meet the criteria, ICBC would reject them resolutely; whereas for those key projects concerning environment protection, new energy sources exploitation and utilization, energy-saving and clean development, ICBC would provide full support for their development.
According to statistics, the key construction projects of environment protection supported by ICBC mainly concern treatment of waste water, treatment of solid wastes, desulfurization of flue gas generated by coal-fired units, comprehensive remediation of water environment and comprehensive ecological protection. Among these projects, there are 179 projects concerning desulfurization of flue gas in the ultra-supercritical coal-fired units and coal-fired units, the balance of their loans amounting to RMB 60.483 billion; there are 250 projects concerning construction of urban sewage treatment facilities and their supporting pipe network, the balance of their loans RMB 17.193 billion; there are 77 comprehensive water environment remediation projects (such as the comprehensive environmental remediation projects in Tai Lake Area and Qinhuai River Area), the balance of loans RMB 14.309 billion; and there are 28 construction projects of waster treatment facilities, the balance of loans RMB 2.477 billion.
Key energy-saving construction projects mainly cover regional combined heat and power engineering, utilization of residual heat and pressure, adaptation of coal-fired industrial boiler (kiln), and adoption of energy-saving technologies in architectural construction. Among these projects, there are 123 regional combined heat and power engineering project, the balance of their loans accounting for RMB 43.759 billion; there are 20 projects of utilization of residual heat and pressure in cement and steel manufacturing, the balance of their loans RMB 5.3 billion; and there are 23 central heating and heating network construction projects, the balance of their loans RMB 1.929 billion.
Projects concerning exploitation and utilization of new energy sources and clean development mechanism are mainly in the fields of hydropower, wind power, and nuclear power. Among the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, 89 projects have received credit support from ICBC.
In addition, ICBC has provided credit lines to projects of comprehensive resource utilization, projects of advanced environment protective technologies promotion and application and other technical innovation projects for energy-saving and emission reducing; among which ICBC has granted RMB 1.962 billion of loans to a number of transportation companies, which is used to purchase the new model of Europe III buses.
Historical experience has proven that each huge economic crisis will bring about major industry restructuring and profound change in international division of labor. Never has an economy succeeded in overcoming the recurrent crisis without initiating a new technological revolution, which gives birth to new industries, creates new demands for production and consumption, and in turn saves the economy from recession. In this way a new development cycle of industries spurred by new technologies will start. Nowadays, solar energy, wind energy, biomass, geothermal energy, and nuclear energy have all been put into application and gradually industrialized, thus it has become possible that the rapid growth of new technologies, new energies and new industries will reshape the landscape of future global economy. While emphasizing "expanding domestic demand and maintaining growth rate", the Chinese government also highlights "structure adjustment and industry upgrading", hoping that our national industries, after surviving the economic crisis, will have made a great leap forward rather than staying where it was. It can be said that both the development of Chinese economic and of Chinese banking business are facing a significant historical opportunity for major restructuring and industrial upgrading.
To seize the opportunity, ICBC has always paid close attention to the policies and industry development plans concerning development of new energy sources, new technologies and new industries, and taken the initiative to formulate new lending policies, adjust the qualification standards for clients, develop new credit products and services, explore new ways of risk control, and train professionals, so as to make full preparation for rapid development of new energy sources, new technologies and new industries and to win the market competition. In fulfilling its social responsibility creatively by promoting upgrading of national industries, ICBC can also enhance its capability of sustainable development.
The related ICBC official said that ICBC would closely follow the relevant national standards and the working progress of statistics on energy saving and emission reducing, take into consideration the present distribution of green credit projects and take steps to formulate specific standards for categorizing green credit projects. In addition, in the areas of environment protection such as treatment of waste water and utilization of wastes, the areas of energy saving and emission reducing such as desulfurization of flue gas generated by coal-fired units, utilization of residual heat and pressure generated by cement manufacturing, and clean develop mechanism projects, and the areas of new energies development such as nuclear power and wind power and generation of related facilities, ICBC will further its research on market targets, risk status, and development trends and formulate or amend correspondent lending policies, in order to guide its branch offices to provide credit lines reasonably, to effectively hedge credit risks, and to fulfill its social responsibility as well as to maximize its economic profits.