(Original title: Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the Central Bank, said at the State Council's regular policy briefing held yesterday that the "interest rate unification" reform will not reduce mortgage interest rates)

Zhou Liang, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that under the current situation, the implementation of LPR will help reduce the financing costs of enterprises, especially private and small and micro enterprises

Last week, the State Council executive meeting deployed market-oriented reform methods to significantly reduce the real interest rate level and solve the problem of financing difficulties. At the State Council's regular policy briefing held yesterday, Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the central bank, said on the impact of the "interest rate unification" reform on mortgage interest rates that the mortgage interest rate has changed from the benchmark interest rate to the reference LPR. The reference benchmark has changed, but the interest rate level cannot fall. At the same time, the central bank will soon issue an announcement on personal housing loan interest rate policies based on full research.

As for the real estate market, Liu Guoqiang said that we must resolutely implement the requirements of the Political Bureau meeting of the Central Committee on July 30, adhere to the positioning of "houses are for living in, not for speculation", implement a long-term real estate management mechanism, not use real estate as a short-term means of stimulating the economy, ensure the effective implementation of differentiated housing credit policies, and keep personal housing loan interest rates basically stable.

"How to operate specifically, the central bank will issue an announcement on the interest rate policy for personal housing loans. The details are still being investigated. But one thing is for sure, the interest rates on housing loans will not drop." Liu Guoqiang emphasized.

This year’s government work report proposed that the comprehensive financing cost of loans to small and micro enterprises will be reduced by 1 percentage point within the year, and large state-owned commercial banks will increase their loans to small and micro enterprises by more than 30%. Regarding the current progress of this work, and under the new LPR formation mechanism, what role and impact will your association play in alleviating financing difficulties?

Zhou Liang, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that after two years of hard work, the regulatory authorities have made great efforts to solve this problem.

First, we have quantitatively improved the supervision and assessment mechanism, urged commercial banks to implement due diligence exemptions and error tolerance and correction mechanisms as soon as possible, and worked hard to establish a long-term mechanism that dares to lend, is willing to lend, and is able to lend, so as to increase effective credit supply. In particular, commercial banks are required to separately list inclusive credit plans for small and micro enterprises, and simultaneously achieve an increase in volume and a decrease in price, that is, "increase in volume and decrease in price."

Zhou Liang introduced that by the first half of this year, the loan balance of small and micro enterprises nationwide reached 35.6 trillion yuan, of which the loan balance of inclusive small and micro enterprises was 10.7 trillion yuan, with a growth rate of 14.27%. This growth rate is 7.14 percentage points higher than the growth rate of various loans. The number of households with loan balances, and how many enterprises can obtain loans, reached 19.88 million, an increase of 2.65 million from the beginning of the year. Among them, five large state-owned commercial banks have performed well. At the end of June, the balance of inclusive small and micro enterprise loans reached 2.3 trillion yuan, a growth rate of 35.14% from the beginning of the year, which is much higher than the growth rate of other types of loans, exceeding 28 percentage points.

Second, multiple measures should be taken to reduce financing costs, guide the financing interest rates of private and small and micro enterprises downward, and maintain loan interest rates of banks and financial institutions at a reasonable level in accordance with the principles of commercial sustainability, capital preservation and low profits. In the first half of the year, the interest rate for newly issued inclusive small and micro enterprise loans was 6.82%, 0.58 percentage points lower than the average interest rate for the whole year of 2018. Among them, the average interest rate of five large state-owned banks is 4.87%, a decrease of 0.66 percentage points from 2018. In addition, financing costs were reduced by 0.57 percentage points by exempting some credit-related fees. Taken together, the comprehensive financing costs of small and micro enterprises have dropped by more than 1 percentage point, achieving this goal in stages.

In Zhou Liang’s view, the implementation of the new LPR mechanism can better reflect the true level of loan interest rates and improve the efficiency of the monetary and credit policy transmission mechanism. “The next step is to focus on improving the transmission mechanism of money and credit, implement this through banks and financial institutions, and strengthen execution.” Zhou Liang said, “We predict that under the current situation, the implementation of LPR will help reduce the financing costs of enterprises, especially private and small and micro enterprises. . We will continue to strengthen supervision and assessment, promote banks to further meet the effective financing needs of private and small and micro enterprises, and work with relevant parties to increase credit supply, reduce financing costs, and strive to solve the problem of difficult and expensive financing. ”