Despite the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, Luohu's financial industry has grown rapidly in the first half of the year, according to an announcement at the biweekly news conference held by the Luohu government on July 24.

Pi Jun, director of the Luohu financial service commission, said outstanding bank deposits hit 2.53 trillion yuan ($ 361.3 billion) in the period, up 14.4 percent year-on-year, and the bank loan balance accounts for nearly 35 percent of the city's total, up 16.5 percent; premium income exceeded 11 billion yuan from January to June, up 8 percent.

The construction of the Hongling Emerging Financial Belt was also speeded up in the first half of this year. In June, some large-scale financial management agencies were set up in Luohu, with total registered capital exceeding 25 billion yuan.

These achievements are not easy to come by. The Luohu financial service commission works with sub-district offices, community workers, banks and Shenzhen High-Tech Investment Group to visit enterprises and gain a good understanding of their needs and difficulties so as to minimize the pandemic's influence on the real economy - a key to stabilizing the job market and people's income.

As of July 21, visits had been undertaken to 144 enterprises, among which 83 obtained credit extension for loans totaling 70.8 million yuan.

Pi Jun said the commission will carry out further visits covering all major enterprises in Luohu.

In the first half of this year, Luohu worked together with the People’s Bank of China’s Shenzhen branch; it introduced the first State-owned asset management company in Shenzhen; it launched a risk compensation capital pool for financial agencies; it also implemented policies on loans with discounted interest benefiting more than 700 enterprises to reduce their loan interest by 16 million yuan.

In the first half of the year, Luohu has convened 16 meetings with banks and enterprises, through which the latter received more than 8.4 billion yuan in loans.

Also, Shenzhen High-Tech Investment Group customized its financing guarantees for industries worst hit by the pandemic, such as those in the catering, tourism and logistics sector, as well as the biomedicine and medical apparatus and instrument manufacturing enterprises.

Liu Jie, general manager of the Youhe Group, a cold-chain service company, said Luohu’s assistance was crucial to help the company to weather pandemic-related storms. The district had provided the company with a credit extension on a loan of 370 million yuan, and had also subsidized the loan interest.