To those small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) moving at break-neck pace, buying new type of machinery equipment for technology upgrade and production expansion is a long-term effective option. Yet the high cost of new equipment has discouraged many SMEs. The Shuya Home Textile Limited Company ("Shuya") in Jiangsu's Suqian is such a company. Shuya produces chemical fiber blankets and bed linens of medium-to-high grade. The company has invested two production lines and two others are in testing. Shuya urgently needs working capital to buy raw material to fulfill the increasing orders, however, the factory plant cannot be used as collateral as Shuya is applying for the property ownership certificate. Shuya is burning with anxiety. After learning the situation, ICBC Suqian Branch immediately called up ICBC Leasing to offer equipment financial leasing service to Shuya. The machinery equipments of the two production lines in operation were used to apply for ICBC Leasing's equipment leasing. Shuya soon secured a loan of RMB 30 million from ICBC Leasing to address its immediate need of working capital.

Shuya represents a great number of SMEs supported under ICBC equipment leasing program. By taking maximum standing of the integrated operation of ICBC Leasing, the wholly owned subsidiary of ICBC, ICBC branches embark aggressive marketing on equipment leasing service to small-and-medium enterprises to address their difficulty in accessing bank loan for production upgrade during fast growth period. Tailored equipment leasing solutions for different categories of SMEs help them speed up transformation and upgrade through application of new technology, new production and new equipment. As of today, ICBC has provided 200+ equipment leasing solutions totaling over RMB 5.5 billion to SMEs in 10+ industries (construction, textile, machinery manufacturing, printing, packaging, food), spanning 49 tier-2 cities in 11 provinces/regions.

The SME equipment leasing is a service in which the leasing company buys the equipment from suppliers stated by the SMEs or directly buys the equipment owned by the SMEs, and then rents the equipment to the SMEs as agreed in the contract and collects the rent. The equipment leasing is ideal for small and mid-sized businesses to secure working capital for buying advanced equipment to upgrade technology. Small and medium-sized enterprises are located in different regions of the country. In light of this, ICBC Leasing takes full advantage of ICBC Group's vast outlet network and customer managers nationwide to reach SME customers. Small and medium-sized companies, if they wish to lease equipment, they can submit application to local ICBC branch instead of contacting with ICBC Leasing in Beijing. Once checked and referred by the local ICBC branch, ICBC Leasing approves the application and buys the equipment, then rents the equipment to the company (lessee) as agreed in the contract. The lessee pays rent to ICBC Leasing as agreed. So far, the service brings together the professional expertise of ICBC Leasing and the fast, convenient ICBC service channels. Small-and-medium enterprises warmly welcome this service which is a solution for them to get funding for their fixed asset investment.

In the past, ICBC Leasing only offered leasing service on limited types of equipment such as textile printing machines, medical instruments, numerically controlled machine tools. In order to better support the technology upgrade of SMEs, ICBC embraces innovation to allow other types of equipment with high adaptability, stable market prices and value for leasing, offering more choices to SMEs. Meanwhile, ICBC Leasing also works with large modern equipment manufacturers, who provide guarantee and facilitate SMEs to buy their manufactured equipment (machineries, machine tools, printing machines) through financial leasing. Worthy of note is that, ICBC Leasing also takes into consideration the actual problem of SMEs when offering equipment leasing service to small businesses. Flexible options for rental payment are offered to relieve effectively their repayment and financial burden.