OREANDA-NEWS. February 21, 2013. It’s learnt from Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC) that as at the end of 2012, its wholly-owned subsidiary ABC Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. (ABC Leasing) launched 52 agro-related leasing projects in a total amount of RMB9.87 billion. It accounted for 34.4% of the company’s total lease contract value, and the share of agro-related businesses ranked first in the industry, reported the press-centre of ABC.

In order to ensure low-risk operation, ABC Leasing strengthened risk management on lessee qualification, lease objects, guarantee measures and rent solvency etc. So far, there is not a single non-performing agro-related project.

Since its foundation in 2010, ABC Leasing adhered to the strategy of differentiated development, and effectively expanded agro-related lease businesses. It segmented agro-related lease businesses into new countryside construction, modern agricultural development and county-level economic development, having formed certain scale effect and social influence in the segmented field. In the field of modern agricultural development, nearly 80% business was concentrated in the 13 major grain producing provinces.

Its business covers pre-production, mid-production and post-production of modern agriculture, and involves manufacturing of agricultural means of production, agricultural large-scale production, agricultural product processing and logistics & warehousing. Such agro-lease businesses effectively stimulate agro-enterprises to replace obsolete production technology and equipment and reduce production costs, thereby promoting local modern agriculture.

In full consideration of features of agro-related businesses, ABC Leasing flexibly designs project solutions with tailored lease objects, lease term, lease rate, lease deposit and way of rent payment, promoting the business development and realizing win-win between customers and the company. Given that some agro-related projects require large input, take a long period for return and have low repayment ability at the initial stage, ABC Leasing prolongs lease term from 3-5 years to 8 years. It also grants a grace period of one year, allowing mere payment of rent within the grace period and payment of principal and rent afterwards.

For those seasonal agro-projects, it flexibly arranges payment deadline and changes quarterly payment to semi-annual payment. Besides, in order to solve the problems of lack of facilities and equipment in some agro-related projects, ABC Leasing innovatively accepts “non-tangible personal property” such as modern pens required for large-scale animal husbandry as lease objects. These measures have considerably increased corporate financing scale and addressed capital shortage inflicted on enterprises for long.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary of ABC, ABC Leasing shoulders the responsibility of enriching Sannong (agriculture, farmers and rural areas) services and product lines. In order to further develop agro-related businesses, it enhances communication with its parent bank and fully taps into ABC’s resource advantages in innumerable county-level sub-branches, long reach and wide coverage. ABC Leasing also intensified joint efforts with ABC and started with lease business to provide customers with comprehensive financial services of “lease + loan”, “lease + factoring” and “lease + wealth management”, exploring a new path for Sannong services.