Four departments: Further develop the role of government financing guarantee systems and strengthen support for employment and entrepreneurship

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on December 26, the Ministry of Finance, the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and the General Administration of Financial Supervision issued guidance on further developing the role of the government financing guarantee system and strengthening support for employment and entrepreneurship. The opinions mentioned implementing priority employment strategies, strengthening coordination and linkage between finance and employment policies, increasing the potential expansion of jobs, supporting the entrepreneurship of key groups, enhancing the employment motivation of financial resources, and making every effort to benefit people's livelihood.

Strengthen support for financial reward policies. Encourage places in a position to do so to increase financial support for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, coordinate the use of financial funds for enterprise guarantee loan interest rates, risk compensation for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, government financing guarantee agencies to reduce guarantee fees for entrepreneurship guarantee loans, supplement funds for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, and informatization support to improve the convenience of individuals or small and micro enterprises to apply for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship.

The original text is as follows:

Guiding Opinions on Further Exploiting the Role of the Government Financing Guarantee System to Strengthen Support for Employment and Entrepreneurship

Finance [2025] No. 135

Finance departments (bureaus), human resources and social security departments (bureaus) of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and planned separate municipalities, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Finance Bureau, the Human Resources and Social Security Administration, the Shanghai headquarters of the People's Bank of China and branches of the provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and planned separate municipalities, financial supervision bureaus, local financial management agencies, related banks, and government financing guarantee and re-guarantee agencies:

Employment is the most basic livelihood for people. In order to thoroughly implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to promote high-quality and full employment, further develop the role of the government financing guarantee system in increasing credit and risk, and guide more financial resources to accurately support employment and entrepreneurship, the following opinions are put forward:

I. General Requirements

Guided by Xi Jinping's ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, we comprehensively implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress and the 20th Plenary Session of the Party, adhere to the people-centered idea of development, implement priority employment strategies, strengthen coordination and linkage between fiscal finance and employment policies, increase the potential expansion of jobs, support the entrepreneurship of key groups, enhance the employment motivation of financial resources, and make every effort to promote development and benefit people's livelihood.

——Adhere to service entities and support the integrated development of employment. Government financing guarantees focus on supporting the main business of supporting small farmers, increasing financing guarantee support for labor-intensive small and micro enterprises with strong employment-absorption capacity, helping enterprises stabilize and increase jobs in expanding production and investment, and achieve high-quality development and employment expansion.

——Adhere to the organic unification of policy guidance and market operation. Strengthen the policy transmission and system leading role of the National Financing Guarantee Fund, optimize resource allocation, and promote the system to improve the effectiveness of policies to stabilize employment and promote entrepreneurship. Financial institutions follow the principles of market-based operation and commercial sustainability, and independently select service clients on the premise of legal compliance.

——Adhere to the overall balance between innovation and development and risk prevention and control. Government financing guarantee agencies and banks actively innovate financial products and service models, strengthen technological empowerment, create convenient online inclusive small and micro products to meet the diverse financing needs of small and micro enterprises; adhere to the bottom line of controllable risk, and integrate prudent management requirements throughout the business process.

II. Strengthen support for labor-intensive small and micro enterprises

(1) Explore the establishment of employment contribution indicators for financing guarantees. Establish a quantifiable and assessable financial guarantee employment contribution index system, scientifically measure the annual positive growth in the number of employed people driven by government financing guarantee agencies and the higher than average number of employed people driven by unit guarantee resources, and strengthen the positive incentives for government financing guarantee systems to support labor-intensive small and micro enterprises.

Employment contribution = number of stable employment in the cooperative agency/number of stable employment numbers of the agency in the previous year × 50% +number of people employed in the stable business scale of the cooperative agency/number of people employed in the stable business scale of the national financing guarantee fund unit × 50%. Among them, stable number of people employed per unit of business = stable number of employed people in cooperative business/scale of cooperative business.

(2) Optimize the allocation of financing guarantee resources. Establish a guarantee resource allocation mechanism based on employment contribution. The State Finance Guarantee Fund adds employment contribution indicators as an important influencing factor when allocating credit lines for re-guarantee business. For partner institutions that contribute a lot to employment, preference is given to re-guarantee resources.

(3) Implement differentiated reguarantee fee concessions. Establish a mechanism linking reguarantee fee concessions to employment contribution indicators, and the State Finance Guarantee Fund grants differentiated concessions to partner agencies' reguarantee fee tiers according to employment contribution. Cooperating institutions that contribute more to employment are given more reguarantee fee concessions, with a maximum of 20% reguarantee fee concessions.

(4) Innovate special financial products and services. Deepen “government, banking, and financial guarantee” cooperation, encourage banks and government financing guarantee agencies to actively develop comprehensive service plans that absorb large numbers of employed people and are labor-intensive small and micro enterprises, explore innovative development of financial products to pay employees' wages to small and micro enterprises, carry out special loan services for job stabilization and job expansion, and actively provide high-quality financial services to small and micro enterprises that have not reduced the number of workers and are more affected by tariffs.

(5) Lower the financing guarantee threshold. Government financing guarantee agencies are gradually reducing and abolishing collateral and counterguarantee requirements for labor-intensive small and micro enterprises that absorb a large number of people and are labor-intensive, weakening profit assessments, increasing their efforts to develop first lenders and first payer customers, and lowering the entry threshold for financing.

3. Helping key groups to start businesses and drive employment

(6) Support key population groups to actively apply for guaranteed loans to start a business. Places that are in a position to do so are encouraged to actively support recent and past college graduates to apply for guaranteed loans to start a business. Advanced engineering classes, preparatory technician classes, and vocational education graduates of special education colleges can enjoy the same policies relating to guaranteed loans for college graduates to start a business.

(7) Actively provide guarantees for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship. Government financing guarantee agencies actively provide guarantee credit and credit enhancement services for eligible college graduates (including college students, village officials and students returning home), veterans, people out of poverty, migrant workers returning to their hometowns to start businesses, urban registered unemployed people, those released from prison, workers in enterprises that have eliminated excess capacity, online merchants, rural self-employed farmers, etc., and small and micro enterprises that have absorbed their employment. Where conditions are met, the pilot explores the use of a general guarantee liability model by government financing guarantee agencies to provide guarantees and credit enhancement for the venture guarantee loan business. The State Finance Guarantee Fund includes eligible guaranteed loan guarantee services for entrepreneurship in the scope of re-guarantee business.

(8) Reduce comprehensive financing costs for entrepreneurial groups. Encourage places that are in a position to do so to explore local government financing guarantee agencies to reduce guarantee fees for eligible guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship or provide incentives to return part of the guarantee fee to trustworthy customers, and push banks to reasonably determine the interest rate level of guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship on the basis of sustainable management. For guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship carried out under the bank-sharing loss-sharing model, the State Finance Guarantee Fund grants differentiated concessions on re-guarantee fees.

(9) Strengthen support for financial reward policies. Encourage places in a position to do so to increase financial support for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, coordinate the use of financial funds for enterprise guarantee loan interest rates, risk compensation for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, government financing guarantee agencies to reduce guarantee fees for entrepreneurship guarantee loans, supplement funds for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, and informatization support to improve the convenience of individuals or small and micro enterprises to apply for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship.

(10) Improve the efficiency of issuing guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship. Establish a “quick review, quick approval, quick insurance, and fast loan” mechanism for guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship, promote the online business model and the “total to total” model of bank guarantee cooperation, simplify the approval process, and push banks to speed up lending.

IV. Strengthen information collection and sharing

(11) Improve cross-departmental data sharing mechanisms. Local finance, human resources and social security departments and branches of the People's Bank of China are encouraged to establish data sharing platforms for qualification review, loan issuance, credit enhancement, financial interest rate discounts, etc., to optimize the stability of data and guarantees related to guaranteed loans for entrepreneurship and statistics on the number of people newly employed, and improve data quality and policy accuracy.

(12) Optimize the construction of digital platforms. The State Finance Guarantee Fund optimizes the national government financing guarantee business management service platform, strengthens functions such as data statistics, cross-verification and dynamic analysis, and provides data support for special products to stabilize employment. Government financing guarantee agencies make full use of big data such as the number of people employed by enterprises, social security payments, payroll payments, and settlement flows to promote the transformation of financing services from “experience-driven” to “data-driven” and improve service quality and efficiency.

5. Strengthen organizational implementation

(13) Strengthen departmental coordination. Local finance, human resources and social security departments and branches of the People's Bank of China improve collaboration mechanisms, refine policies and measures, strengthen publicity and guidance, focus on the financing needs of business entities, promote active connections between bankers, and ease the financing problems of labor-intensive small and micro enterprises. Financial management departments have strengthened positive incentives and adopted differentiated supervisory policies to guide banking financial institutions to invest more credit resources in areas of inclusive finance such as small and micro enterprises, the “three rural areas”, and special groups.

(14) Strengthen performance appraisal guidance. Local finance departments include the effectiveness of government financing guarantee agencies in promoting employment and entrepreneurship into the assessment system of government financing guarantee agencies. The assessment results serve as an important basis for policy support and incentives, stimulating the endogenous motivation of government financing guarantee agencies to serve employment and entrepreneurship.

This article was edited from the official website of the Ministry of Finance; Zhitong Finance Editor: Chen Xiaoyi.