From International Herald Tribune via Chinadaily:
Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said Sunday that he was working with the Chinese government to bring his Grameen Bank lending system to rural China within a year.
Yunus, at a news conference at the opening of the ITU Telecom World gathering, being held for the first time in Asia, said China had invited him to begin a trial of the “microcredit” system, which specializes in making loans of $100 or less, in one of three remote locations. The test could lead to expansion of the program throughout the country.
In Yunus’s native Bangladesh, Grameen Bank has provided collateral- free loans to five million people – 96 percent of them women – since 1976. Yunus and Grameen were awarded the Nobel in October for their achievements in reducing poverty. At the same time, Grameen is noted for its loan repayment rate of more than 98 percent. [Full Text]
