China working to ease financing strain for firms

China is working hard to ease the financing strain on cash-starved firms, as part of its major drive to ensure the orderly resumption of work and production amid the mounting downside pressure, the country's top economic regulator said on June 16.

Meng Wei, spokeswoman of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a news conference that the country will further streamline the procedures for corporate bond issuance and help firms reduce financing costs.

The NDRC announced in March that China started to implement a registration-based system for the public issuance of enterprise and corporate bonds, scrapping an approval mechanism.

As of June 12, the NDRC had approved and registered the issuance of enterprise bonds for 496.96 billion yuan ($70.27 billion), up by 38 percent year-on-year. And the country had issued corporate bonds worth 193.03 billion yuan, an increase of 38.9 percent year-on-year.

To cushion the coronavirus's impact, the NDRC has opened a green channel for hard-hit companies and key firms engaged in epidemic prevention and control work.

As of June 12, 76 corporate bonds had been issued under the green channel policy package and raised 94.57 billion yuan in total. And 15 companies registered in Hubei province had got approval via the channel to issue bonds worth 17.12 billion yuan.