The Development Of French Rural Cooperative Finance And Its Revelation To China

Credit agricole is representative of French rural cooperative finance. It was specifically established, in the late 19th century, as a financial instrument to implement French agricultural policies to support the development of agriculture. In the past 20 years, Credit agricole has developed according to the increasingly fierce market competitions and the rapidly changing economic environment to be stronger and more efficient. With its continuous innovation of products and sevices as well as the readjustment of management manner and structure, Credit agricole has maintained a comparatively large share of market, and has gradually developed into an universal bank. Developing from cooperation to commercialization, Credit agricole has never given up the idea of cooperation, and always adheres to the aim of serving its members.The Rural Credit Cooperative is representative of Chinese rural cooperative finance. After more than 50 years'development, it has formed its own characteristics. However, in the course of its development, it has gradually lost its cooperative nature and even ran against the principles of cooperative, due to the unclear property rights, the chaotic corporate governance structure as well as the changeful management system under the guidance of Chinese government. Undoubtedly, Chinese government has made great effort to enable the Rural Credit Cooperative to play an important role in rural financial market. However, the reform of Rural Credit Cooperative is carried on staggeringly, and the rural finance is still very weak in Chinese financial system.In China, policy-related business and commercial business are incompatible in the rural financial sector. In contrast, Credit agricole has developed from the bank, which mainly dealt in policy-related business to meet the needs of public services, into a modern commercial bank according to market-oriented operations, without losing its cooperative nature. Its developing process and experiences are worth our research.This paper uses cooperative finance theory and institutional change theory as theoretical guidance, and it illustrates according to two lines from the point of institutional change:one is the analysis of institutional change of French rural cooperative finance, the other is the analysis of institutional change of Chinese rural cooperative finance. This paper firstly summarizes the origin and evolution of rural cooperative finance of the two countries, then analyzes their own management system model and their corporate governance structure, finally studies the role of government in the institutional change of rural cooperative finance and sums up the dissimilations of rural cooperative finance of the two countries. In the last part of this paper, it reveals the significance of the research of French rural cooperative finance.