Rural economy is a big problem in the social and economic development of China. The "dual economy" structure caused by the difficult integration of rural economy and urban economy; It is difficult to realize the marketization, industrialization and science and technology of agriculture, which leads to the low anti-risk ability of agriculture; Slow growth of farmers' income, etc. These three issues are collectively referred to as "three rural issues". As the basic position of agriculture in the whole national economic development, as well as the insufficient consumption demand caused by the slow growth of farmers' income, the serious imbalance of social development and other social problems caused by the increasingly obvious "dualization" between urban and rural areas are all caused by the lagging development of rural economy, how to solve these three problems in the process of rural economic development is the core problem that hinders the social development of China.
In recent years, while China's economy has achieved rapid development, the gap between urban and rural economic development is getting bigger and bigger for various reasons, and the gap between urban financial development level and rural financial development level is more obvious.
Agricultural Bank of China, Postal Savings and Rural Credit Cooperatives, the main financial institutions in rural areas, are developing very slowly, except for a few economically developed places, which are basically at a loss. The gap between urban and rural areas will be further widened due to the advantages of cities in terms of talents, leading technology, developed finance, convenient living, resource advantages and fast commodity circulation.
China's urban capital is still in the stage of capital accumulation, so we can't directly use urban capital to promote rural economic development, otherwise the urban science and technology industry will fall behind other countries, which is not conducive to the improvement of the country's comprehensive national strength and the long-term ability to participate in international competition. As the core of economy, finance plays an unquestionable role in economic development. The development of rural economy can only rely on the development of rural finance. Through the development of rural finance, the circulation efficiency and use efficiency of rural funds will be improved, which will eventually become the capital artery to support rural economic development. At present, China's rural finance is extremely underdeveloped. How to quickly improve the level of financial services? The author believes that the first is to improve and upgrade the rural financial ecological environment, and promote the leap development of rural financial quality from the inside through the improvement of the ecological environment.
The Financial Times editorial article "Financial Ecological Environment is Competitiveness" points out that "Financial ecological environment is not only related to the soft environment and civilization of a country or region, but also directly affects the economic and financial development level of an economy. In a certain sense, the financial ecological environment is competitiveness. "
Lei Heping and Lin Zhiquan (2005) pointed out that the financial ecological environment is directly related to the financial and economic development of a place through the investigation and comparative analysis of the data obtained in zhouzhi county and Chengcheng County, Shaanxi Province.
Therefore, we should develop the rural economy. It is impossible to implement a large-scale direct policy tilt today. The only way we can go is to develop rural finance. By developing rural finance, we can revitalize rural stock funds, speed up the flow of funds, enlarge the total amount of funds and promote the leap-forward development of rural economy. The development of rural finance must depend on a good financial ecological environment. Therefore, it is imperative to realize the development of rural economy and improve the construction level of rural financial ecological environment.
Secondly, analyze the defects of the current rural financial ecological environment in China.
Although the underdevelopment of rural economy is not entirely caused by the reality of underdeveloped rural finance, if rural finance can be better developed, it will greatly promote the development of rural economy. However, due to the poor ecological environment of rural finance in China, the development of rural finance has been greatly restricted. Zhang Heqi (2005) pointed out that there are four deficiencies in the current rural financial ecological environment in China: the lack of legal environment makes it difficult to protect financial creditor's rights; The lack of credit information system leads to the aggravation of moral hazard of lenders; Inaccurate information disclosure leads to distorted relationship between banks and enterprises; Economic and financial dislocation leads to a large outflow of rural funds. A series of commentator's articles in Financial Times also made a detailed analysis of the weak links in the construction of China's financial ecological environment from the perspectives of legal system, information, accounting system and credit system. On the basis of these research results, the author summarizes the current situation of rural financial ecological environment in China as follows.
First, the macroeconomic situation in rural areas is not optimistic, and the phenomenon of rural capital spillover is serious. The profit rate of agriculture has always been lower than the average profit rate of society, so if there are no appropriate measures to subsidize agriculture, its low rate of return will inevitably lead to capital spillover in this industry. The reality of agricultural development in China is that the rate of return is extremely low, and the soil on which rural financial institutions depend is so poor. How to make rural finance grow healthily? In addition, because commercial banks and branches of postal savings account for a considerable share of rural financial institutions in China, the former is bound to lend money from rural areas through its superior banks out of the pursuit of profits, while the latter, as the main provider of operating funds for policy banks, will also absorb most of rural funds outside the rural economic circulation system. The inevitable law of capital flow and outflow channels lead to the serious phenomenon of rural capital overflow in China, and the overall ecological environment of rural financial operation is not optimistic.
Second, the legal environment is lacking, and the construction of credit information system is lagging behind. Theoretically, the lack of legal construction includes three aspects: legislation, judicature and law enforcement. Speaking of rural reality, we are really lacking in the latter two aspects. The existing legal norms are not well implemented, and "the laws are not obeyed and the law enforcement is not strict" is a stubborn disease that cannot be ignored in the rural legal system construction. Such a legal environment will inevitably ignore the interests of creditors. The lack of credit environment is the more direct reason for the deterioration of rural financial ecological environment. The moral hazard caused by the lack of good faith will have an extremely adverse impact on the rural financial ecological environment because of its unpredictability and strong influence on the subsequent loan behavior. The data cited by Lei Heping and Lin Zhiquan (2005) in the investigation report is worth pondering: at the end of 2004, the loan balance of rural credit cooperatives in zhouzhi county was 760 million yuan, with non-performing loans of 65.438+0.7 billion yuan, and the non-performing loan rate was nearly 25%, of which 13 outstanding non-performing loans were 46.08 million yuan and party and government cadres loans (or guaranteed loans) were 65.08 million yuan. The government and its staff can't keep their promises, don't repay loans, and won't be punished. This is an undeniable reality in China's rural financial ecology-the construction of credit information system is lagging behind, and lenders lack credibility.
Third, it is difficult to deeply supervise rural finance, and the phenomenon of "bad money drives out good money" appears in rural financial business, which is not conducive to the development of formal rural financial institutions. Due to the dispersion of agricultural loans and the concealment of rural private lending, it is difficult to supervise them in depth, so it is impossible to guide the loan business of formal financial institutions and crack down on underground loans that are not conducive to the development of formal financial undertakings. At the same time, due to the advantages of simple private lending procedures and short loan term, rural credit cooperatives and other financial institutions can not meet part of the capital demand in the market under the realistic situation of financial business innovation, which also intensifies the development of informal financial business, the market share of rural financial market is constantly eroded, and the external competition environment is poor.
Fourth, the construction of internal control system of rural financial institutions lags behind. As the main body of rural finance, credit cooperatives have relatively low positioning and less participation in market competition due to historical reasons, which leads to their shortcomings in the construction of management system, human resources and market competition awareness. In particular, due to the narrow business scope, the construction of internal control system is seriously lagging behind, which can not only control and guide business innovation predictably, but also control traditional business well. The lack of internal control system is mainly manifested in financial accounting system, personnel and post management system, risk audit system, accountability system and so on. The lack of these internal systems is the internal reason why rural financial institutions cannot achieve active innovation and development. Therefore, the internal ecological environment of rural financial institutions in China is unbalanced at present.
Fifth, the intervention of rural administrative forces is more common, and the degree of marketization of financial markets is lower. Secondly, the data cited by the author has explained the intervention of rural administrative forces from the factual level-not only indirectly (greeting loans, providing government guarantees, etc.). ), but also directly forced to have a loan relationship with financial institutions, occupying a large amount of loan funds for non-financial operations, making the original limited rural capital creation a fault. The rural financial market has a low degree of marketization, which can not provide accurate market orientation for the development of rural financial institutions and the trading environment is poor. Third, some thoughts on optimizing the rural financial ecological environment
In 2005, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee pointed out that a good financial ecological environment is needed to build and cultivate a competitive financial market in rural areas. In view of the current shortage of rural financial ecological environment in China, the author intends to put forward the following suggestions to optimize the rural financial ecological environment.
(1) Strengthen the construction of the legal system and create a relaxed and moderate legal environment in rural areas.
First, strengthen the legislative work aimed at the special needs of rural economic and financial construction. The rural economic and financial foundation is weak and needs special legal protection different from the general economic environment. In particular, it is necessary to strengthen legislation on how to protect farmers' vested interests and expected interests and related rural economy. Only by using laws to protect the normal economic interests of rural economy can we mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties, otherwise the conflicts of interests among economies will be difficult to solve and the rural financial ecological environment will lack effective legal barriers.
Second, strengthen law enforcement and justice. When dealing with and coordinating rural economic and financial affairs, we must truly abide by the law and strictly enforce the law, and do this in all fields under the constraints of the existing legal framework; At the same time, we should strengthen the judicial power in rural economic and financial activities and strengthen the active supervision function, instead of waiting for the appeal.
Third, strengthen the crackdown on rural financial crimes. In view of the large number and small amount of rural financial cases, the cost of cracking down on rural financial crimes will increase greatly if the conventional legal procedures are taken. Therefore, the author thinks that a special summary procedure should be established to deal with rural financial cases, so as to intensify the crackdown on rural financial crimes and create a relaxed and moderate legal environment for creating a good rural financial ecological environment.
(B) to enhance the competitiveness of rural credit cooperatives as a breakthrough to build a competitive rural financial market.
In 2005, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee clearly put forward "cultivating competitive rural financial markets". As the main force of rural finance, rural credit cooperatives should be financial institutions that promote the interests of their members according to the original intention of establishing such financial institutions-their own banks as rural economic entities such as farmers, or according to their establishment and management model-member autonomy. However, due to the inherent feudal ideology in rural areas of our country, township, village and even county governments have intervened in rural credit cooperatives, resulting in the management behavior of credit cooperatives can not well represent the interests of farmers and other rural economies. Therefore, an important step to optimize the rural financial ecological environment is to eliminate the official color of credit cooperatives, embody the idea of people's governance, return the management right of credit cooperatives to the people, and urge credit cooperatives to operate according to market rules, thus adding a strong competitive subject to the rural financial market, and then urging other rural financial institutions to actively change from administrative-led to market-led and finally establishing a competitive rural financial market.
(3) Strengthening the construction of rural credit system.
Information asymmetry is a universal reality in society. Both sides of the transaction know their own situation better than their opponents, so they may use their information advantages to play games, and the general result is the loss of social efficiency. Therefore, from the perspective of social resources utilization, the transaction under the condition of asymmetric information is not the optimal transaction behavior.
An important risk of rural financial market transactions comes from the breach of contract caused by the credit of the transaction subject, especially the lender. If the lender or financial service provider does not pay attention to honesty, the interests of the counterparty may be damaged in the case of moral hazard, but the counterparty may not wait until the loss occurs to recover, and may make up for the possible expected loss by adding other additional terms, thus increasing the transaction cost of the defaulting party. This kind of transaction will further inhibit the full and timely use of funds in rural financial markets. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a complete credit information system including credit information database, credit reward and punishment system and recovery system.
(4) Improve the ability of various rural financial institutions to carry out business innovation and risk control from the aspects of improving the construction of internal control system and improving the quality of personnel.
The rural financial market lacks necessary segmentation, and the rural economy's demand for financial services has been excavated. Therefore, financial innovation is a necessary and urgent task. However, under the existing personnel and system, China's rural financial institutions can not only achieve financial product innovation, but also achieve financial business innovation by following innovation, and the risks of innovative products cannot be effectively controlled under the existing risk constraint mechanism.
Therefore, rural financial institutions should strengthen the construction of internal control system, especially in financial accounting system, post responsibility system, risk supervision and auditing system. In addition, rural financial institutions should pay more attention to the introduction of high-quality financial professionals, increase the training of existing employees, and enhance risk awareness, risk prevention and control capabilities, business innovation awareness and business innovation capabilities. To provide internal system and talent guarantee for the prosperity of rural financial market and further optimize the rural financial ecological environment.
(5) Establish rural loan insurance system, promote the issuance of agricultural loans, and enhance the self-creation ability of rural funds.
Generally, the loan-to-deposit ratio of rural financial institutions is only 30% or even lower, and their ability to create money is weak. In addition, transactions in rural commodity markets are usually completed through cash transactions, and the speed of currency circulation is slow. Therefore, it is inevitable that the total amount of rural funds is insufficient.
The establishment of loan insurance system for rural financial institutions can effectively promote the loan issuance of rural financial institutions-the loan insurance system can ensure that the economic benefits of rural financial institutions tend to maximize. According to the reality and social conditions of China's current economic development, we can adopt two different loan insurance models. First, the trade association model-rural financial institutions independently set up industry and regional insurance funds. For example, taking rural credit cooperatives as the main body, in conjunction with other rural financial institutions, all institutions are forced to pay a certain proportion of loan reserves by paying deposit reserves, forming a pool of funds, and establishing regional fund management companies through bidding. In the operation of funds, safety is the main factor, supplemented by profitability. When the insured institution has irrecoverable loans or other established losses, it will directly pay compensation from the fund pool according to a certain proportion or full amount of the losses; The second is the government-led model-with the central branch of the People's Bank of China and the banking regulatory bureau as the core, the fund pool is set up by compulsory payment of loan reserve. The specific operation of the fund is basically the same as the previous one, except that a more flexible way can be adopted in fund management, either through bidding management, self-management or through designated institutions. Relatively speaking, the author believes that the second mode is more likely and more secure in terms of operational efficiency, capital security and profitability.
In addition, a scientific and efficient loan insurance system also needs to establish a fair and effective loss assessment, loss confirmation and supervision system to prevent moral hazard of some lending institutions. Under the guarantee of such a system, the issuance of loans is bound to accelerate, thus reducing the precipitation of rural funds and improving the ability of rural currency creation.
(6) Restrict rural financial institutions from becoming channels for capital spillovers, so as to cultivate relatively independent regional financial markets with complete financial creation functions.
The spillover of rural funds is not only detrimental to the development of rural economy, but also to the development of all local financial institutions. From the meaning of financial ecological environment, a financial ecological environment formed without sufficient funds can never support the normal development of local finance. Therefore, we should directly stipulate the ways of fund absorption and utilization of financial institutions from the institutional level, and at the same time establish corresponding supervision and incentive and restraint systems to ensure that the situation of fund spillover is suppressed and the rural financial ecological environment is qualitatively improved.
(7) Enhance the breadth and depth of rural financial supervision.
In order to achieve profitability or other goals, rural financial institutions will inevitably trade with other institutions, especially in order to maximize profits, which may violate the rules and threaten the balance of the entire rural financial ecology. Therefore, in the current situation that China's rural financial system is weak in risk resistance, supervision should be strengthened, including sublimation in two aspects. First, expanding the scope of supervision is the width of supervision. It should be included not only in the daily business activities of rural financial institutions, but also in the financial business of non-financial institutions to reduce the possible impact on rural financial institutions, rural finance and rural economy; Second, improving the level of supervision is the depth of supervision. We should not only supervise the routine business activities of rural financial institutions, but also guide the product innovation behavior and system construction to effectively improve the management level of rural financial institutions.
(8) Accelerate the development of rural economy and provide basic support for the development of rural financial institutions.
The improvement of rural financial ecological environment mainly depends on the development of rural economy. As mentioned above, there is a close linear relationship between them, which is a kind of mapping. Only when the rural economy grows, the supply and demand of rural funds can be enlarged, so as to improve the ability of money creation and the efficiency of rural funds, and finally realize the stable, healthy, independent and orderly multiplier cycle of funds in the rural economic system, and fundamentally improve the rural financial ecological environment.