Central Bank: Study and standardize pledge financing business of forest rights, water use rights, carbon emission rights, etc

On December 12th, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a press conference on "Utilizing Green Finance Policies to Support the Construction of Green Factories". Yu Jian, Deputy Director of the Credit Market Department of the People's Bank of China, introduced the Bank's exploration, practice, and achievements in green finance.

One is to improve the top-level design. Lead the formulation of policy documents to strengthen financial support for green and low-carbon development, green financial services for the construction of a beautiful China, and clarify green financial policy arrangements and key measures from key areas, mechanism construction, departmental collaboration, and other aspects. Publish the "Catalogue of Green Finance Support Projects (2025 Edition)" to unify the standards for various green finance products such as green loans, bonds, insurance, etc. Establish communication and collaboration mechanisms with industrial departments such as industry and information technology, ecological environment, etc., establish a key project library, carry out financing docking support, and strengthen policy coordination and information sharing.

The second is to enrich the product and market system. Actively guide financial institutions to increase their investment in green credit, innovate ecological environment oriented development (EOD) loans, sustainable development linked loans and other products, study and standardize resource and environmental element pledge financing business such as forest rights, water rights, carbon emission rights, etc., to meet the diverse financing needs of the green field. Expand direct financing channels for green projects, innovate and launch products such as carbon neutral bonds, transition bonds, and blue bonds, and develop the green bond market with high quality.

The third is to strengthen the incentive and restraint mechanism. The People's Bank of China has established an 800 billion yuan carbon reduction support tool to encourage financial institutions to increase their support for key areas such as clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and carbon reduction technologies. In practice, they will continuously optimize policy arrangements, increase targets, expand scope, and reduce costs, effectively playing the leading and driving role of policy tools. Conduct a green finance evaluation of financial institutions, incorporating their performance in green loans, bonds, product innovation, internal management, and other aspects into the evaluation indicators, forming a closed loop of policy guidance, statistical evaluation, and policy optimization, and guiding financial institutions to effectively improve their green finance service capabilities.

With the joint efforts of the financial and industrial sectors, significant results have been achieved in the development of green finance. In the past five years, green loans have maintained a high growth rate of over 20%. As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, the balance of green loans was 43.51 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.9%, which was 16.4 percentage points higher than the growth rate of various loans; The cumulative issuance of green bonds is 4.95 trillion yuan, with a balance of 2.29 trillion yuan, ranking among the top in the world in terms of scale; The carbon reduction support tools have guided financial institutions to issue carbon reduction loans totaling 1.38 trillion yuan.