China's second municipal-level credit management services agency opened in the capital city Wednesday, reiterating the country's determined drive to build up a sound business credit environment.
The Beijing Credit Bureau Co. (BCB) is expected to provide customers with objective and all-around credit analysis reports of companies and individuals, as well as other related value-added services, backed by a massive bulk of credit information and records it has gathered from the market.
"The system will greatly ease the bottleneck dogging the growth of the country's market economy by establishing a reliable bridge between trading partners," said Wu Bo, general manager of the company, at the opening ceremony.
"It is especially helpful to those cash-strapped small-and medium-sized enterprises which lack solid back-up information when seeking loans from commercial banks," Wu said.
With an initial investment of 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million), BCB will first establish a huge database harboring millions of pieces of corporate and individuals' credit information and records, which will be possessed and evaluated before being handed to its consumers.
"We will eventually build ourselves as an independent heavy-weight credit rating company like Standard & Poor's," Wu said.
According to him, the information will be initially gathered from government departments, including customs, taxation bureau, financial bureau, commerce and industry regulatory authorities, and even the judicial departments, before being gathered from other sources.
The lack of a well-disciplined credit system is believed to be a bottleneck, hindering the country's smooth economic exchanges between trading partners.
(Xinhua News Agency July 25, 2002)
