The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest commercial lender, pledged here on Thursday its loans for small companies would grow by more than 15 percent in the coming three years. Figures from the country's top lender revealed loans for small companies reached 282 billion yuan from January to October this year, up 9.8 percent year on year.

    Financing difficulty has long been a bottleneck to Chinese small companies. Some of them were also hit hard by the global financial crisis, as they weren't prepared to handle external risks.

    Bank of China, another one of the Big Four lenders, plans to expand loans to more than 300 billion yuan by the end of 2009 to major infrastructure projects covering railways, airports, high ways and power plants. Companies with merger and acquisition initiatives, technology upgrade plans and innovations will be preferred for the loans. Industries of heavy pollution and low-efficiency will not be considered.