On September 6, the “Beautiful China Tour • Beautiful Ice City – Heilongjiang Government-Banking-Enterprise Conference on Green Finance” jointly sponsored by Industrial Bank (IB) and the Environmental Protection Department of Heilongjiang was held in Harbin. At the conference, IB Harbin Branch signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Boosting the Environmental Protection Cause of Heilongjiang Province with Finance with the department, and entered into banking-enterprise strategic cooperation agreement with the leading enterprises in the energy conservation and environmental protection industry of Heilongjiang to create a banking-government and banking-enterprise cooperation platform jointly, committing itself to pushing the economic development of the province in the area of energy conservation and environmental protection with financial innovation.
At the conference, IB indicated that, during the “12 th Five-year Planning” period, it would provide the energy conservation and environmental protection industry of Heilongjiang Province with special green financing up to RMB 20 billion, and give preferential loan terms and interest rates for the financing of key low-carbon, energy conservation and environmental protection projects.
It is reported that this conference is the fourth stop of “2013 Beautiful China Tour • Green Finance” of IB, attracting more than 20 backbone enterprises engaging in energy conservation and environmental protection including Huadian Energy, and more than 60 representatives from the Environmental Protection Department, Financial Service Office, governments at the district and county levels, and key groups and entities of the province. IB indicated that it would continue “Beautiful China Tour” across China, lending further support to the development of the energy conservation and environmental protection cause in China in collaboration with local governments and environmental protection departments, and boosting the building of “Beautiful China”.
It is said that, during the “12 th Five-year Planning” period, Heilongjiang has issued specific implementation plans for the energy conservation, emission reduction and pollution control targets, e.g. to carry out energy-conserving transformation for key projects, adjust the energy structure, control the total emission of pollutants strictly, fully implement the building of new urban sewage treatment plants and supporting pipe networks, prevent and control water pollution in the drainage area of Songhua River, construct a riverside green ecological corridor, and build a sound aquatic ecosystem.
To support local governments to fulfill their bidirectional targets in energy conservation and emission reduction and prevention and control of water pollution, IB Harbin Branch has, relying on the integrated product and service system of “Green Finance • Tactics (2013)” released by the Head Office, customized a green financial service solution for the key energy conservation and emission reduction projects, pollutant emission control projects and water resource protection and utilization projects of the province.
As disclosed by the principal of IB Harbin Branch, by the end of this June, it has granted a total of more than RMB 8 billion green finance based financing loans across Heilongjiang Province, involving a large variety of industries such as thermo-electricity joint production, sewage treatment, reclamation of industrial and agricultural wastes in an integrated manner, building energy conservation, and bio-technology. Next, the branch will, based on the economic and ecological features of different regions and cities across the province, design individualized financial service solutions conforming to local conditions, and build a green channel for green finance related businesses, giving priority in the aspects including examination and approval of credit extension for relevant projects and special loan scale.
By the end of June 2013, the green finance based financing granted by IB to over 1,000 enterprises across China accumulatively has reached RMB 286.2 billion, with the balance hitting RMB 155.3 billion; that grante d in the area of utilization and protection of water resource amounted to RMB 55 billion, with a financing balance reaching RMB 38.64 billion. Such financing supported more than 390 projects covering a number of fields such as industrial water conservation, seawater desalination, construction, upgrading and transformation of sewage plants, sewage pipe network engineering, sludge disposal engineering, water area control, comprehensive control of water environment, regenerated water, and prevention and control of heavy metal pollution. It is estimated that these projects could reduce the emission of 901,200 tons of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and save 255.7906 million tons of water.