A Study On Rural Informal Finance In China

In recent years, with the process of industrialization in agriculture accelerated, the shortage of funds has gradually become a restraint for the further development of the rural economy. Constructing a perfect supply system of rural financial have become an effective way to solve the shortage of funds and an key to realize the industrialization of agriculture. At the same time this issue has gradually become a hot issue which is the same with the issue of stock and real market. As for this issue of constructing a perfect supply system of rural financial, the most controversial subject is the informal finance which exists for a long time.The study on rural finance is not only the issue which is discussed vehemently by theorists but also the focus which attracts the attention of government. Except funded by public finance, the more critically way to solve shortage of development fund which be faced by 700 million farmers is to help them to form themselves finance system. The key to solve this problem is to give a license to the rural inform finance.Information,the simple trading procedures and flexibility in repayment dates are the virtues of rural informal finance compared with formal financial. So the relationship between them is not antagonistic. If our government make a license to rural informal finance, a lot of idle fund in rural area will be efficiently exploited and these funds will fully meet the demands of agriculture development. Because of this, the article mainly through questionnaires make 800 farmers live in 11 towns in Jilin province as examples to analyze the present situation of rural informal finance and explore future development model of rural informal finance. This paper is divided into four chapters to study this issue.The first chapter illustrates rural financial development in two part, namely the period before opening and reform and from that up to now. As we known, the development of rural informal finance is at a low level compare with the period before the establishment of nation. After the 1911 Revolution broke out, the bourgeoisie who hold the power in our country wanted to promote national industrial development, at this time in both rural and urban, rural informal financial activities are very active and a lot of large commercial banks was established. We could say that this period is the golden age of China's financial development, despite the volatile situation in the country, both formal and informal finance institutions undergone a considerable development. After the establishment of new China, with the advancement of the socialist transformation of the ownership structure, the private economy has gradually been replaced by the socialist public ownership and collective ownership. It can be said that during this period, the finance have lost the condition for their survival, financial development is stagnant. After the reform and opening up, because of the policy of household responsibility system life of the peasants was greatly improved and farmers have surplus funds in hand at same time there is a degree of financial services needs. So our country promoted reform three times to promote development of rural finance. In the first round of reform, we established a separated rural finance system. In the second round of reform we established a "trinity" of the rural financial system. In the third round of reform, Our main purpose is to promote the reform of rural credit cooperatives.As the key part of the paper, chapter two uses the empirical methods to analysis rural informal finance using the data collected from 800 household in Yongji county. Through the investigation and analysis, that shows us a clearer reflect of the financial status of the local rural informal finance. Overall, the frequency of borrowing from local farmers is not high, however perceptual knowledge by farmers reflects that the financial activities of local rural people is very common, and when the farmers faced shortage of funds, the first choice is to borrow from family or friend with a low rate, however none of them take into account the human exchanges between farmers. Meanwhile, the survey results also reflect that the loan funds is always small-based with short duration for example most of short-term loan within one year. The second part of this chapter is mainly developed by reference to the southern provinces data on rural informal finance and compared with the formal financial institutions to analyze the reason of rapid development of rural informal finance. First of all, as a non-governmental financial institutions or a natural person has a very clear definition on property rights. The clear property rights is not only conducive to the recovery of personal funds, the supervision of the debtor and improve the efficiency of fund use. Second, because the business scope of rural informal finance is relatively small, it has a superiority on collecting information and coupled with simple and flexible lending procedures and deadlines, the rural informal finance have low transaction costs. Finally, through the results reflected by the questionnaire, We know that the credit loan is very common in rural areas. Rural informal finance and the credit loan have a natural adaptation.Chapter III mainly introduce the operating mode of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the U.S. rural informal financial activities to provide some experience for the development of China's non-governmental financial organizations. Grameen Bank, as the poor banks, it provides a great deal of financial support to the poor out of poverty in Bangladesh and in the world's poorest countries, it creates a 97 percent loan recovery rate, this miracle attracts our attentions. The successful experience of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has been learned by a lot of countries in the world and the running mode is imitated by more than 50 countries including the United States. The operating characteristics of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh mainly involve the following points: first of all, only the poor can get loans and the loan is limited to the production, at the same time lenders will provide technical guidance and support. Second, the interest rates is generally higher to compensate for higher risk of agricultural production. Finally, some farmers can apply for loan together without the collateral, coupled with relatively simple loan procedures Grameen Bank is very welcome. As for the United States, there is a considerable difference in production and lifestyle of farmers between the United States and China, however, as a financial supply system is relatively well-developed countries, it is necessary to conduct a brief description of its financial system. In fact, we have a very similar rural financial system between the two countries, but due to different mode of operation, it leads to different results of services.Chapter IV mainly forecasts prospects of China's rural informal finance and gives some recommendations to the development of China's rural informal finance. The first part of this chapter make use of the data to express complementary and mutually reinforcing relationship between the informal finance and the formal finance, to illustrate the need for the legalization of rural informal finance. The second part mainly gives recommendations to rural informal fiancéto make them design financial suitable for rural financial market. Specifically, the loans will be in micro-credit with a simple application procedures and we also will set up a flexible term of the loan. As for collateral in lending, we will make use of mutual restraint mechanism among the loaners to supply credit-based and we also will provide some financial support for farmers when they encounter some difficulties. The third part of this chapter, mainly gives some policy recommendations to the legalization of informal finance. We should formulated relevant laws and regulations and give liberalization to interest rate controls to speed up the formation of non-governmental financial organizations; the other hand, through establishing a national agricultural insurance institutions, to ensure that the private financial institutions have a good external environment.