BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhua) -- China will ramp up financial and insurance assistance to sectors related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, according to a circular issued by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

To secure the supply of major farm produce, the commission encouraged commercial banks to strengthen financial support for grain production, circulation, processing, storage, import and export and consumption, and offer good financial services to the animal husbandry industry.

Further financial assistance should be offered to family farms, rural cooperatives and people returning or moving to the countryside to set up businesses, said the circular.

Lendings to rural areas will be expanded to prop up epidemic prevention and control, public health infrastructure construction, as well as the sectors of tourism, planting and breeding and production of agricultural products and by-products, which were hit by the COVID-19 epidemic.

The commission also underscored poverty alleviation measures, urging efforts to enlarge the scale of loans to deeply impoverished areas and beef up credit support to industrial development in poor areas.

Insurance entities are encouraged to offer policy-based agricultural insurance services and promote severe illness insurance programs in poverty-stricken regions.