Shenzhen increases guaranteed loans to firms

The human resources bureau in the city will increase the pool for guaranteed loans for starting up small and micro-sized enterprises in 2022 to 4 billion yuan (US$628 million).

The move is aimed to relieve financing difficulties for small and micro-sized enterprises. An individual who starts an enterprise in Shenzhen can get a 600,000-yuan loan from banks, whose lending risk is underwritten by government funds. The company will be set up in a partnership, where each partner can get a 600,000-yuan subsidy or a tie-in loan up to 5 million yuan. The loans have low interest rates which can be paid in about nine years.

In 2021, Shenzhen has given out a total of nearly 1.85 billion yuan in guaranteed loans to small and micro-sized business applicants.

To ensure these enterprises’ smooth operation, the human resources bureau will relieve their burdens through lowering insurance payment rates, refunding unemployment insurance and enhancing enterprises’ employment services.

The bureau will gather job supply information from human resources agencies and job markets and use big data to match enterprises’ demands through online job fairs. Shenzhen is expected to relieve enterprises’ burdens by 1.9 billion yuan in 2022 through lowering unemployment insurance rates and work injury insurance rates. At the same time, the city will refund unemployment insurance payments directly to the accounts of eligible small and micro-sized enterprises.

In cooperation with eight training institutions, the bureau offered on-the-job employees 250,000 minutes of online vocational training.