The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission published a notice setting out 2025 priorities for financial services supporting agriculture, rural areas and farmers, directing banks and insurers to deepen rural finance reforms, improve product and service capabilities, and sustain financial support linked to consolidating poverty alleviation outcomes. The notice calls for a tiered and complementary rural financial services institution system, reforms to Postal Savings Bank agency outlets, and faster rural credit cooperatives reform and risk resolution. It prioritises maintaining credit supply for grain and other important agricultural products, providing support to relieve pressure in the beef and dairy sectors, promoting county-level income-generating industries and rural construction, expanding eligible rural collateral, and raising rural digital finance capability. On the insurance side, it promotes wider take-up of property and liability products for agriculture-related enterprises, higher personal insurance protection for farmers, and more efficient underwriting and claims handling, alongside risk-reduction services and increased support for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. For 2025, banks are asked to keep comparable agriculture-related loan balances growing versus the start of the year and to meet differentiated growth targets for inclusive agriculture-related loans, supported by tighter credit risk management, stronger controls over agriculture-related lending practices, improved data accuracy, and enforcement against illegal rural financial activity. As context, agriculture-related loans stood at CNY 51.88 trillion at end-February 2025, up 8.9% year on year, the average interest rate on newly issued inclusive agriculture-related loans in the first two months of 2025 fell to 4.52%, and agricultural insurance provided CNY 0.91 trillion of risk coverage in January to February 2025, up 12.28%.

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