Beijing has held private meetings with officials from the Asian Development Bank to secure crucial funding aimed at transforming the mainland's State Development Bank into an effective lending arm of the government.
In a move interpreted as a further step towards hastening much needed economic reforms, surprise proposals were presented by the State Development Bank's newly appointed president Chen Yuan this week, calling for assistance in building an effective loans evaluations system.
ADB director of infrastructure, energy and financial sectors Paul Dickie said Beijing had become anxious to put in place strong credit appraisal systems, and loan appeal committees, aimed at allowing better consideration of loan proposals.
'We are delighted [Mr Chen] asked, ' Mr Dickie said.
'He wants to turn it into a top-ranked project finance institution.' He said the ADB soon would send a mission to Beijing to evaluate the proposal and recommend the best way to build the loans system.
Under Beijing's proposals, the aid agency would provide the necessary funding that would be used to commission a technical consultancy firm to build the system.
The move serves to reinforce Beijing's intention to use the State Development Bank as one of its chief vehicles to set in place substantial expansion of physical infrastructure in the mainland as a means to offset any negative impact of the financial crisis in the rest of the region.