"Soft loans were introduced under the background of financial system reform and investment and financing system reform, which had very positive significance under the historical conditions at that time." Relevant persons from the regulatory authorities told reporters that according to the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Central Committee 1993, the State Council has formulated a series of major measures, such as separating policy finance from commercial finance, and turning the four major state-owned specialized banks into real commercial banks. In order to concentrate funds more effectively to ensure national key construction, ease the "bottleneck" of economic development, enhance the country's macro-control ability on fixed assets investment, and deepen the reform of investment and financing system, the State Council decided to establish the National Development Bank. The main sources of CDB's funds are issuing financial bonds to financial institutions and issuing bonds abroad. The funds are mainly invested in large and medium-sized infrastructure, basic industries and pillar industries, technological transformation and other policy projects and their allocation projects approved by the state (hereinafter referred to as "two basics and one support"). As a result, the soft loan business, which embodies the policy intention, was officially launched with the establishment of CDB, and together with the hard loan, it provided funds for the "two foundations and one support" project. Due to the advantages of soft loans, local governments are more willing to obtain soft loans. The priority of general financing is soft loans first, then hard loans, and then apply for loans from commercial banks.

Due to the strong demands of local governments, many local governments have set up working groups led by local leaders to strive for soft loans, and specially issued documents to connect with CDB's soft loans. Soft loans once accounted for a considerable proportion of CDB's on-balance-sheet loans. At the suggestion of relevant departments, CDB will control the proportion of soft loans below 20%. By the end of 2007, the balance of CDB soft loans accounted for about 15% of its total loans of 2,272 billion yuan in the same period.