MNI China Press Digest May 27:SME Loan, Bailouts, Shanghai

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Friday:

• Banks are under great pressure to increase loans to small businesses amid weak demand despite regulators’ repeated calls to boost credit support to SMEs, the 21st Century Business Herald reported. Big banks have cut SME loan interest rates to around 3.5%, much lower than the average 5% released by the central bank, the newspaper said citing a bank worker in Shanghai. Companies have reduced borrowing and production sizes amid the economic downturn, while unsustainable businesses in need of loans fail to get approval from banks’ risk control department, the newspaper cited another bank worker. New loans unexpectedly slumped to an over 4-year low of CNY645.4 billion in April from March's CNY3.13 trillion, MNI noted.
• China should widen its level of support to more groups because those who are able to benefit from the current tax cuts and car purchase subsidies are not the groups most in need of a bailout, Yicai.com reported citing Huang Yiping, a former adviser to the People’s Bank of China. China may consider issuing special treasury bonds to support the economic activities of the difficult groups, Huang was cited as saying. Some analysts expect Q3 may be an important window for launching the issuance of these bonds with an expected scale between CNY1-2 trillion, the newspaper said.
• Shanghai plans to resume trading in its land market from June 1, and the proportion of funds that developers must seal up in supervised accounts has been reduced to lure buyers, the Shanghai Securities News reported. The restart of the land market is an important signal as the city is actively promoting the resumption of work after a near two-month lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19, the newspaper said. Some local state-owned developers have shown enthusiasm towards the land auction and targeted several plots, the newspaper added.