Source: Economic Reference Newspaper
Under the goal of carbon neutrality, the development of green finance has entered the "fast lane". According to data from the People's Bank of China, at the end of the third quarter of this year, the balance of local and foreign currency green loans was 14.78 trillion yuan, an increase of 27.9% year-on-year, 16.5 percentage points higher than the growth rate of various loans. Among them, loans to projects with direct and indirect carbon reduction benefits were 6.98 and 2.91 trillion yuan respectively, accounting for 66.9% of green loans.
In the next step, promoting the development of green finance is still the top priority of financial policy. Recently, the central bank, the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and other departments focused on releasing signals, and the Economic Reference Daily reporter learned that the regulatory authorities will further strengthen the top-level design of green finance, carry out climate risk stress tests in an orderly manner, continuously strengthen the carbon market function, and promote the establishment, improvement and efficient operation of the carbon pricing mechanism.
Green finance has maintained rapid growth
"During the '14th Five-Year Plan' period, the Bank of China will provide no less than 1 trillion yuan of financial support for the green industry, and the proportion of green credit will increase year by year." Liu Jiandong, risk director of Bank of China, said at the Tianfu Financial Forum on October 29 that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Bank of China will also accelerate the adjustment of the credit structure of the industry, strengthen the balance control of industries with high energy consumption and high emissions, and increase credit support for green projects such as upgrading and upgrading emission reduction technologies, clean and efficient utilization of fossil energy, and flexible transformation of coal power.
At present, financial institutions are accelerating the layout of green credit. The latest disclosure of the bank's third quarter report shows that as of the end of the third quarter, the balance of green credit of the Agricultural Bank of China was 1.62 trillion yuan, an increase of 26.8% over the beginning of the year, higher than the growth rate of the bank's loans by 15.4 percentage points; the balance of green loans of the Postal Savings Bank was 346.743 billion yuan, an increase of 23.42% over the beginning of the year.
Data released by the People's Bank of China on October 29 showed that at the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of local and foreign currency green loans was 14.78 trillion yuan, an increase of 27.9% year-on-year, 1.4 percentage points higher than the end of the previous quarter, 16.5 percentage points higher than the growth rate of various loans, and an increase of 2.74 trillion yuan in the first three quarters. Among them, loans to projects with direct and indirect carbon reduction benefits were 6.98 and 2.91 trillion yuan respectively, accounting for 66.9% of green loans. By purpose, the balance of infrastructure green upgrading industry loans and clean energy industry loans was 6.99 trillion yuan and 3.79 trillion yuan respectively, an increase of 25.7% and 22.8% respectively year-on-year.
At the same time, the size of the green bond market has maintained rapid growth, and innovative varieties are constantly emerging. According to iFind data, since the first carbon neutral bond issuance in February this year, as of October 31, a total of 188 carbon neutral bonds have been issued during the year, with a total issuance scale of 178.64 billion yuan. Sinopec, National Energy Group, State Power Investment, Huaneng Group, CNNC, China Three Gorges Group, State Grid and many other energy state-owned enterprises have issued carbon neutral bonds.
It is worth mentioning that the quality of China's green financial assets is generally good. Chen Yulu, vice president of the People's Bank of China, recently revealed that the non-performing rate of green loans in China is lower than the average non-performing loan rate of commercial banks in the country, and there are no cases of default in green bonds.
Regulators have increased their support for green finance
Promoting the development of green finance is still the "key play" of follow-up financial policies. In the past half a month, the central bank, the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and other departments have concentrated on speaking out and increasing green financial support.
Liu Guiping, vice president of the People's Bank of China, said that the People's Bank of China will work with relevant departments to further strengthen the top-level design of green finance, deepen the reform and innovation practice of green finance at the grass-roots level, and continuously improve the green financial system; carry out climate risk stress tests in an orderly manner, and proactively respond to the financial stability problems that climate change may bring; and continuously strengthen the function of the carbon market, and use the power of finance to promote the establishment and efficient operation of the carbon pricing mechanism.
Xiao Yuanqi, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, pointed out that the development of green finance must be based on the premise of sustainability. To achieve this goal, we must first cultivate a long-term stable market, give full play to the role of the price mechanism as the hub of green financial resource allocation, and take green pricing as a yardstick to regulate the flow and allocation of financial resources. He said that it is necessary to establish an internal fund accounting system within financial institutions that conforms to the direction of green finance. It is necessary to guide financial institutions to reflect green incentives in internal pricing.
Under the support of policies, a huge market space is opening. Ma Jun, president of the Beijing Institute of Green Finance and Sustainable Development, said that carbon neutrality is expected to bring more than 180 trillion yuan of green financial investment in the next 30 years, bringing huge investment and business opportunities in energy, transportation, construction, industry, forestry and other industries. According to Deutsche Bank, the scale of China's green financial market may increase to 100 trillion yuan in 2060, with huge room for development.
Carbon reduction support tools have gradually approached. Yi Gang, president of the People's Bank of China, said at the 2021 Financial Street Forum Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions Conference that the central bank is studying the introduction of carbon emission reduction support tools, providing low-cost funds to eligible financial institutions, supporting clean energy development, and strengthening the overall energy supply capacity.
Sun Guofeng, director of the Monetary Policy Department of the People's Bank of China, previously revealed that the support tool for carbon emission reduction in key areas of carbon emission reduction is "doing addition" to support investment and construction in key areas such as clean energy, thereby increasing the overall energy supply capacity. In order to ensure accuracy, carbon emission reduction support tools support three key areas of clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and carbon emission reduction technologies; in order to ensure direct access, carbon emission reduction support tools adopt a direct mechanism of first lending and then borrowing.
We should continue to strengthen the innovation of green financial products
Industry insiders pointed out that in the future, it is necessary to further strengthen product and service innovation and meet the development needs of green finance through multiple channels.
Ren Tao, a special researcher at the National Finance and Development Laboratory, said that at present, the scale of investment and financing in China's green industry has grown rapidly, and the current absolute scale is relatively considerable, and it is gradually enriched from the perspective of varieties, including green bonds (including carbon neutral bonds), green credit, green trusts, etc. At the same time, some local pilot mechanisms have also been initially established, and the carbon emission trading mechanism has been initially established. However, there are still certain practical dilemmas, such as a relatively single source of funds (mainly policy funds, the proportion of market-oriented funds is relatively low), and the supply of effective funds is insufficient.
Wang Yifeng, chief analyst of the financial industry of Everbright Securities, also believes that because most of the energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises, the guarantee and collateral are relatively insufficient, and some projects have the characteristics of long construction period and large investment amount, banks are still cautious about carrying out green credit-related business.
In this regard, Ren Tao suggested that on the basis of the inclusion of green credit and green bonds in the scope of qualified guarantees for monetary policy operations in the early stage, financial institutions can be encouraged to provide financial support for carbon emission reduction and guide financial institutions to invest more funds in green industries by improving the tolerance of green credit, reducing the pilot risk weight of green assets, providing policy tools such as preferential interest rates, and incorporating green credit into the macro-prudential assessment framework.
Liu Jiandong believes that commercial banks can not only invest funds in the green and low-carbon industry through indirect financial instruments such as credit, but also guide the flow of funds to the green and low-carbon industry through direct financial instruments such as capital markets and venture capital, and can also use resource allocation and other means to differentiate pricing according to the carbon intensity and color of the project, increase the cost of funds in the high-carbon industry, guide social capital, labor and other elements to flow to the green and low-carbon industry, and use a variety of financial instruments to carry out risks and returns in different periods. Redistribution between different risk appetites.
(Economic Reference Newspaper)