BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's rural policy bank has offered loans worth 805 million yuan (about 115.23 million U.S. dollars) using special re-lending funds for national efforts to contain a coronavirus outbreak.
The loans will be used for manufacturing and business activities related to epidemic prevention and control to ensure sufficient supplies of important medical and living materials, said the Agricultural Development Bank of China (ADBC).
The bank has coordinated with 60 key enterprises for the anti-virus campaign as of Monday and has sped up the progress of loan issuance while ensuring that special funds are earmarked.
To increase support for enterprises, the ADBC set the loan interest rate of the special re-lending funds at 2.5 percent to 3 percent, lower than the 3.15-percent upper limit set by the central bank.
The actual financing cost for enterprises will be lowered to less than 1.5 percent, as the finance ministry also announced a 50-percent discount for the interest rate of the re-lending funds, said the ADBC.
Chinese health authorities Monday said it received reports of 3,062 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 97 deaths on Sunday.
