What’s new: A court verdict in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing has revealed how Jiang Bin, a former official of the Export-Import Bank of China (Exim Bank), took bribes and illegally approved loans to a local businessman worth 220 million yuan ($33.7 million).
In 2013 and 2014, Jiang, then a deputy head of the policy lender’s Chongqing branch, directed the bank to issue loans to Yuan Yumao despite him being ineligible to receive financing from the bank. Jiang also fabricated loan application materials, according to a ruling released Thursday by an intermediate people’s court in the city. The court said that Jiang knew a large part of the loan was embezzled by Yuan and had accepted 1 million yuan from him as a bribe.
The ruling upheld a previous judgment by a district court in Chongqing in which Yuan was sentenced to five years in prison for offering bribes.
What’s the background: Jiang was placed under a graft investigation by China’s corruption watchdog in May 2019 and was dismissed from (link in Chinese) public office and expelled from the Communist Party in November 2019.
After working for Exim Bank’s Chongqing branch for eight years, Jiang served as head of its Shaanxi branch from July 2015 to January 2019, where he was suspected of having colluded with privately owned companies to illegally issue loans, Caixin reported last year. About 7 billion yuan of loans issued by the Shaanxi branch under Jiang’s direction were considered potentially high risk, a source familiar with the issue said.
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Han Wei contributed to this report.
Contact reporter Guo Yingzhe (yingzheguo@caixin.com) and editor Heather Mowbray (heathermowbray@caixin.com)
