Small businesses got 210 billion yuan (about 30.48 billion U.S. dollars) of loans in 2019 from the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), one of the country's biggest lenders, up 58 percent from the previous year.

The lender has made full use of financial science and technology to provide credit-based loans to small and micro enterprises through advanced technologies such as the internet, big data and artificial intelligence, said a source of the bank.

At the end of 2019, the proportion of new credit-based loans for small and micro enterprises was 58 percent, up 40 percentage points from the same period of the previous year, according to the source.

The bank has been cutting financing costs of small and micro enterprises. Its comprehensive financing cost for small and micro businesses had dropped by 120 basis points at the end of 2019.

China's top banking and insurance regulator has reiterated inclusive financing services for small businesses amid efforts to boost the real economy.

Overall financing costs of inclusive financing services for small businesses will be lowered by another 0.5 percentage points in 2020, while the country's five largest banks are expected to see their inclusive loans to small firms grow by over 20 percent year on year, according to an annual work conference of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission in January this year.

By the end of 2019, total outstanding inclusive lending to small businesses reached 11.6 trillion yuan, up over 25 percent, the commission said.