China will exempt banks' interest income from loans to small firms and rural households from value added tax, authorities said on Monday, in the latest step to address a long-standing issue of lack of financing to small firms. The policy will be in effect from December 1, 2017 to the end of 2019, the finance ministry and tax administration said, while contracts for loans with small firms will also be free of stamp taxes from 2018 to 2020.
The supportive policies will apply to loans of 1 million yuan ($150,750) or less, said the notice posted on the finance ministry's website. The move was the latest of a series of top-level policy measures to boost financial support for China's credit-starved small companies after Premier Li Keqiang highlighted their funding difficulties at a State Council meeting on September 27.
Beijing has for years been looking for ways to encourage more financial support to China's millions of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for most of the employment in China and are more productive than state firms. The big state firms are seen as the favoured borrowers by China's state-owned banks. Small firms are also an important new driver of innovation, investment and consumption, Li said at the meeting, noting that SMEs still struggled to access loans.