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Some 2.9 trillion yuan ($468 billion) a year was
required over the next five years to boost clean energy and
tackle pollution, said the study published on Thursday by the
Financial Research Institute of the People's Bank of China and
Greenovation Hub, a non-governmental organization.
The researchers found that bank loans to the coal sector rose
sharply from 2012 and more than doubled in 2013, a period when
growth in Chinese energy demand remained high and coal firms
were rapidly expanding.
After reviewing loans made to 168 Shanghai-listed companies, the
report found that 5.5 trillion yuan went to borrowers
specializing in coal mining, coal-fired power generation, coal
chemicals and building materials from 2008 to March 2014.
However, the cheap loans have saddled the sector with a massive
capacity glut that has brought down prices, especially with coal
consumption falling for the first time in more than a decade
last year.
Banks are already under pressure to cut lending to oversupplied
industrial sectors and many loan applications from small and
highly energy-intensive coal firms have been rejected.
But the report said regulators should crack down harder on
financial institutions that continue to lend money to polluters,
adding that cutting coal-related lending to 40 percent of the
2013 level would help bring coal consumption down to around 4
billion tonnes by 2020.
China aims to cap consumption at 4.2 billion tonnes by that year
and reduce coal's share of the total energy mix to 62 percent
from 65 percent.
The authorities have struggled to encourage banks to lend to
cleaner businesses, which lack collateral.
"Most banks have no clue how to evaluate the cost of the
environmental impact from projects," said Yuan Jia, a researcher
with the institute.
Outstanding loans to energy conservation and environmental
protection projects had reached 416.2 billion yuan by June 2014,
just 6.43 percent of total bank lending from China's 21 major
banks, according to the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
"(China) should offer easy access for (clean) energy companies
to borrow money at a lower rate, build a green investment bank
and issue green bonds to direct investment into green and clean
businesses," the report said.
($1 = 6.1965 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Kathy Chen and David Stanway; Editing by Alan
Raybould)
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