Credit to environmental and health care sectors in China

Two decades of financial cooperation

The People’s Republic of China and the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) today signed two loan programmes totalling USD 90 million intended for projects in the Chinese environmental and health care sectors. The loan agreements were signed in the presence of H.E. Mr. Xiang Huaicheng, Minister of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, who is on an official visit to Finland, and the President and CEO of NIB, Mr. Jón Sigurðsson.

One of the loan programmes amounts to USD 50 million and is intended for financing of projects in the environmental sector in China. The other loan programme of USD 40 million is intended for projects in the health care sector.

NIB has now provided three sector specific loan programmes to China. Both Nordic suppliers and the Chinese Ministry of Finance have voiced a demand for special credit facilities for the environmental and health care sectors. China has extensive plans for developing both of these sectors, above all in the poorer areas of the country. The first specific loan programme of USD 40 million, for projects within the health care sector, was signed in November 2001.

The signing of the two new loan programmes means that NIB will enable the funding of projects in China totalling some USD 160 million. Lending amounts are usually between USD 2 and 10 million per project, and the loans normally have a tenor of 10-15 years.

The longstanding cooperation between NIB and the Chinese Ministry of Finance started in the first half of the 1980s. The eighth general loan programme, amounting to USD 60 million, was signed in 2001. Under the previous loan programmes projects have been financed in such sectors as food manufacturing, papermaking, energy production, telecommunications and health care. All the projects are of mutual interest to the Nordic countries and the People’s Republic of China.