China's central bank Monday urged all related departments to strengthen cooperation and earnestly carry out the policies concerning state loans to students.

A spokesman for the People's Bank of China said that on June 22 this year, the Ministry of Education, the PBOC and the Ministry of Finance jointly convened a national conference on state loans to students, and a circular was subsequently issued jointly by related departments to promote the progress of granting state loans to students.

With the coming registration of freshmen for the autumn semester, banks, educational and financial departments and colleges should closely cooperate in carrying out student loan policies, he said.

He said that by the end of May, the four largest state-owned commercial banks had accepted loan applications from 534,000 students, with a total applied volume of 3.337 billion yuan (about US$ 407 million), of which 170,000 students had signed loan agreements with banks with a total volume of 1.262 billion yuan.

(People's Daily 08/28/2001)