SHANGHAI Rural Commercial Bank yesterday opened its first-out-of-city outlet in Hunan Province as it seeks to tap the rural economy there and in other regions of China too, including Shandong and Yunnan provinces.

The outlet opened in Ningxiang County in Changsha, the provincial capital, and is the first rural bank in that city.

The rural bank with a registered capital of 100 million yuan (US$15.9 million) will provide financial products and services to agri-business, small and medium enterprises as well as farmers.

With a 51 percent stake the Shanghai bank is the biggest shareholder in the new joint-stock rural bank.

Its expansion into rural finance followed a disclosure by the National Finance Work Conference at a Beijing conference last month that the development of China's rural finance services is lagging behind in resolving the shortage of rural financial services and meeting the financing difficulties of micro-enterprises.

The Australia & New Zealand Banking Group owns 20 percent in the Shanghai lender.