Yurong Microcredit Company, the first microcredit institution in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, was established in Lhasa Sunday.

With a registered capital of 50 million yuan (US$7.33 million), the company was set up with full funding from private investors, according to the company.

Targeting small and medium-sized enterprises and farmers and herdsmen, the company said it would focus on loans that were conducive to improving the livelihood of the poverty-stricken people.

By the end of 2009, China had 1,334 microcredit institutions which had extended a total of 70 billion yuan, accounting for 0.19 percent of the total loans extended by Chinese banking sector, according to the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

(Xinhua News Agency April 12, 2010)