The People’s Bank of China has adjusted the criteria on bank lending in its latest move to encourage lending to the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises.

The PBoC announced on January 3 that it has changed the definition of small businesses it uses when calculating banks’ reserve requirement ratios. In a previous policy shift, the PBoC exempted loans made by banks from the reserve ratio calculations when they were made to businesses with credit lines of less than five million yuan, or