China EximBank lends 730b yuan to help foreign trade

F.P. Reprot

BEIJING: The Export-Import Bank of China (China EximBank) has issued over 730 billion yuan (102.4 billion U.S. dollars) of loans to support the country’s foreign trade during the first five months of this year.

The value represents a 15.8 percent increase from the same period last year, the bank said.

At the end of May, the bank’s outstanding loans to foreign trade firms came in at nearly 3 trillion yuan, up 16.36 percent year on year and 130 billion yuan more than the beginning of 2023.

The bank has stepped up financial support for foreign trade companies and related industrial and supply chains in the past two years, in particular for small and micro trade firms. Its Belt and Road outstanding loans also topped 2.2 trillion yuan at the end of last month.

The China EximBank is a state-funded and state-owned policy bank supporting China’s foreign trade, investment, and international economic cooperation.

Meanwhile, China’s online ride-hailing companies reached 313 by the end of May, four more than the number registered in the previous month, data from the Ministry of Transport shows.

By the end of last month, the authorized ride-hailing vehicle certificates and driver licenses in the country hit 2.36 million and 5.58 million, up 2.5 percent and 3.3 percent month on month, respectively, according to the ministry. In May, 735 million ride-hailing trips were made.

Hangzhou, the capital city of east China’s Zhejiang Province, led the city list in terms of compliance rate of online-hailing orders, according to the data.

In 2022, online ride-hailing trips made up about 40.5 percent of total taxi trips, an increase of 6.4 percentage points from a year earlier. (APP)