China's central bank makes green finance a priority

BEIJING -- Green finance will be a priority for China's central bank this year, as well as during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), the country's central bank governor has said.

To help achieve China's emission and carbon neutrality goals, the central bank should encourage the financial system to support green investments with a market-based approach, said the governor of the People's Bank of China Yi Gang at the China Development Forum.

Yi also called for evaluating and dealing with the impact of climate change on financial stability and monetary policies promptly.

He said the tasks are "urgent" in the face of China's goals of bringing its carbon emissions to a peak before 2030 and becoming carbon-neutral before 2060.

By the end of last year, China's outstanding green loans reached nearly 12 trillion yuan (about $1.84 trillion), the highest in the world, official data showed.

Yi said efforts would be made for the 2021-2025 period to improve the standardization green-finance system. There would also be enhanced information reporting and disclosure, and financial institutions would be encouraged to combat climate challenges and strengthen international cooperation.

Yi said China's monetary policy has been in a normal range and has room to provide liquidity and maintain interest rates at a reasonable level.

The monetary policy should focus on supporting key sectors and weak links, strike a balance between facilitating economic growth and fending off risks, and help build a favorable environment for deepening financial opening-up, he added.