China offers loans of $42 billion for infrastructure spending

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has distributed an additional 300 billion yuan ($42 billion) allocated for infrastructure projects through three state policy banks as of Wednesday, the official Securities Times reported on Thursday.

The increased funding was part of policymakers’ support to spur growth in the world’s second-biggest economy by issuing debt to fund big public works projects.

China’s cabinet on Aug.24 offered another slew of stimulus to revive the country’s faltering economy, including raising the quota on policy financing tools by 300 billion yuan.

The Export-Import Bank of China has offered its 50 billion yuan, totally funding 106 major projects, the newspaper said.

As of Sept. 17, Agricultural Development Bank of China has offered 100 billion yuan in loans on 732 projects, it said.

As of Sept. 20, China Development Bank has distributed 150 billion yuan in loans on 421 projects.

Funds from over 500 billion yuan in special bonds under carryover quotas from 2019 which are sold by local government, will be used for infrastructure projects in the fourth quarter, ensuring growth in infrastructure investment of around 10% for the whole year, the newspaper said.

China narrowly escaped an economic contraction in the June quarter, weighed by a deepening property slump, slowing consumption and strict COVID-19 restrictions.

($1 = 7.1715 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Liangping Gao, Ellen Zhang and Ryan Woo; editing by Richard Pullin)