The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has highlighted rapid growth in green financing following a push for development of the sector in order to expedite the satisfaction of ambitious carbon reduction targets set by Beijing last year.
The State Council has previously approved the establishment of nine green finance reform innovation pilot zones across a total of six provinces in China, including Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guizhou, Gansu and Xinjiang.
As of the end of 2020 these pilot zones had a total green loan balance of 236.83 billion yuan (approx. USD$37.09 billion) accounting for 15.1% of their total loan balance, according to figure in PBOC’s “China Regional Financial Operations Report (2021)” released on 8 June.
The green bond balance of the pilot zones was 135 billion yuan ($21.14 billion), for a YoY rise of 66%.
The Report highlights efforts by the Guangdong province capital of Guangzhou to expand green supply chain financial services and drive the innovative use of green bonds, with the city obtaining a special green finance award from the Institute of International Finance in 2020.
PBOC announced at the start of the year that growth of green finance would be one of its key work missions in 2021 as well as for the duration of the 14th Five Year Plan. In 2020 Beijing set the ambitious targets of achieving peak carbon by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.
