Agricultural machinery leasing market is still to be deeply cultivated

Exploring the Financial Leasing Service "Agriculture, Countryside and Farmers"-- the Agricultural Machinery Leasing Market still needs to be ploughed

China's agricultural machinery production and marketing market is broad, but the purchasing power of agricultural machinery is weak, and agricultural machinery leasing can enlarge agricultural production capital and effectively promote advanced agricultural machinery. However, under the influence of market fluctuations, policy regulation and other factors, there are still some obstacles to carry out agricultural machinery leasing, which requires a new system design and detailed landing of relevant policies.

Not long ago, by the way of sale and leaseback, the Xiangfa Agricultural Machinery Cooperative of Sanhe Town, Hongze County, Jiangsu Province signed a lease contract with Suzhou Financial Leasing for 28 sets of agricultural machinery and equipment, which came in handy in the busy agricultural season. In recent years, financial leasing institutions pay more and more attention to how to better serve "agriculture, rural areas and farmers". Last year, the "guidance on promoting the healthy Development of the Financial Leasing Industry" issued by the General Office of the State Council proposed to encourage financial leasing companies to give full play to their advantages such as convenient financing, flexible time limit, and financial optimization. develop products and services suitable for the characteristics of agriculture, rural areas and farmers at fair prices, and actively carry out pilot projects for financial leasing of large-scale agricultural machinery and equipment. At present, what explorations have been made by financial leasing in serving agriculture, rural areas and farmers, what results have been achieved, and what problems still exist? In this regard, the "Economic Daily" reporter interviewed people in the industry.

The lease items are mainly agricultural machinery.

In the interview, the heads of a number of financial leasing companies said that because the main machinery and equipment in agricultural production is agricultural machinery, the current financial leasing services for agriculture, rural areas and farmers are mainly agricultural machinery leasing.

In accordance with the plans and requirements of the National Plan for Sustainable Agricultural Development (2015-2030) and the Technical Roadmap for key areas (2015 Edition), the comprehensive mechanization of major crops will reach more than 68 per cent by 2020. The total output value of the agricultural machinery industry will reach 600 billion yuan, and the market share of domestic agricultural machinery products will be more than 90%. " Li Li, president of Harbin Financial Leasing, said that compared with the scale of China's huge agricultural machinery production and marketing market, the purchasing power of agricultural machinery is somewhat weak, and even if the government subsidizes the purchase of agricultural machinery, it will not be able to reverse this situation in the short term. This provides a broad space for giving full play to the role of agricultural machinery leasing.

It is understood that agricultural machinery leasing directly serves agricultural production entities, allowing funds to serve "agriculture, rural areas and farmers"; through the financial leverage effect of agricultural machinery leasing, agricultural production capital can be magnified and a large-scale effect can be formed; at the same time, with the help of agricultural machinery leasing, advanced agricultural machinery and tools can be effectively popularized, thus improving the level of agricultural production.

According to Zhang Yiqin, president of Jiangsu Financial Leasing, agricultural machinery leasing business involves three parties, namely, lessors, lessees and manufacturers or their dealers. The general process is that the manufacturer or its distributor forms the buying and selling intention with the peasant household, and the peasant household (lessee) puts forward the order request to the financial leasing company (lessor); according to the requirement, the financial leasing company signs a "sale contract" with the manufacturer or its distributor and pays for the goods; the financial leasing company leases the purchased equipment directly to the peasant household, and both parties sign a "lease contract" and fulfill their obligations in accordance with the contract.

In addition, there is also a way of after-sale and leaseback, that is, the lessee sells agricultural machinery and equipment to a financial leasing company, then leases it back from the financial leasing company, and pays the rent according to the "leaseback contract", which can be used to invigorate assets.

Financial leasing companies are also seeking other services for "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" model. For example, Jiangnan Financial Leasing tried a 200 million yuan after-sale lease of biological assets at the beginning of this year, with a lease item of tea trees for a period of 3 years. Harbin Financial Leasing supports the capital needs of Dazhuang Meat Company, a well-known beef importer in Heilongjiang Province. 2720 imported cows and calves with high market value are used as living biological leasing items to provide 33 million yuan of financial leasing services.

Gao Yixiang, vice president of financial leasing in Jiangnan, said that there are many difficulties in using biological assets as leased items, such as the determination of the value of biological assets, the registration of the ownership of biological assets, the insurance and disposal of biological assets, and so on. Therefore, Jiangnan financial leasing has not yet carried out such business on a large scale and is ready to promote it step by step when the conditions are ripe.

Business development needs policy support

"at present, the use of agricultural machinery is expanding to the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises and farmers, which brings no small challenges to the business development and risk control of agricultural machinery leasing." Sheng Hua, vice president of financial leasing at Su Bank, said that carrying out agricultural machinery leasing to a wide range of individuals, farmers, and small collective enterprises puts forward higher requirements for financial leasing companies in terms of business development ability, customer service ability, and risk management ability.

Affected by market fluctuations, policy regulation and information asymmetry, agricultural machinery leasing will face credit risk, operational risk and policy risk. Zhang Yiqin said that Jiangsu financial leasing selects high-quality manufacturers to cooperate, controls risks from the source, bases on middle-and high-end agricultural machinery and equipment, uses leased items to reduce risks, optimizes business operation procedures, and uses systems to prevent risks.

Li Li said that the monitoring of leased items and the capital monitoring of leasing business are also challenges faced by financial leasing institutions. In addition, the individual value of the leased items of agricultural machinery leasing is small, the end-users are scattered, and complex risk management solutions are usually costly.

Wang Huijing, assistant president of Suzhou Financial Leasing, said that for financial leasing companies, because the lessees of agricultural machinery leases are scattered, most of the lessees have no past credit history, so it is very important for financial leasing companies to identify, screen and identify lessees.

At present, financial leasing institutions also face some policy obstacles in the process of agricultural machinery leasing. Zhang Yiqin said: according to the provisions of the interim measures for the Administration of the use of Special funds for Agricultural Machinery purchase subsidies, the supplier regularly submitted an application for settlement to the competent department of agricultural machinery at the provincial level on the strength of the subsidy agreement and invoice stub. Agricultural machinery leasing is carried out in the direct rental mode, the VAT invoice is issued by the dealer, and the invoice title is not an individual peasant household, which does not meet the subsidy requirements. In the leasing business of agricultural machinery, first, the ownership is faced with uncertainty, and second, it is restricted by the non-transfer within 2 years, because in accordance with the relevant provisions, agricultural machinery purchased with subsidies cannot be resold or transferred in principle within 2 years. It is suggested that the leasing business of agricultural machinery should be included in the object of financial subsidy, and the direct leasing and leasing of agricultural machinery should be encouraged.

Although the guidance on promoting the healthy Development of the Financial Leasing Industry stipulates that actual users of equipment such as leasing agricultural machinery are allowed to enjoy subsidies for the purchase of agricultural machinery in accordance with the regulations. However, because there are no specific implementation rules, farmers who are the actual users of agricultural machinery rather than the owner may not be able to receive agricultural machinery subsidies. " Wang Huijing said: if leasing is adopted, in order to prevent lessees from illegally selling and disposing of agricultural machinery during the lease period, financial leasing companies need to go through the procedures for registration of agricultural machinery mortgage at the agricultural machinery management department, but as the owner of agricultural machinery, financial leasing companies cannot go through the formalities of mortgaging their agricultural machinery to themselves. To solve the above problems, we need to design a new system and refine the relevant policies.