Commentary of the CPC Central Committee Approving the CCP Central Financial and Economic Commission’s Plan for Repaying Pre-Liberation Public Deposits (September 13, 1952) To the Party Group of the CCP Central Financial and Economic Commission:

(1) We generally approve your plan [1] for repaying pre-liberation public deposits, but the criteria should be further relaxed. You are requested to formulate a specific repayment procedure on the basis of these more lenient criteria and resubmit it to the Central Committee for review.

(2) On this matter, the views of democratic personages should be solicited at an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC. Such a meeting could be held after Premier Zhou returns to China.

Issued by the Central Committee on September 13, based on Mao Zedong’s handwritten draft.

Notes [1] The Party Group of the CCP Central Financial and Economic Commission proposed that, now that the nation’s economic and financial situation has fundamentally improved, in order to safeguard social credit and create favorable conditions for banking lending and deposit-taking, it has been decided to repay all pre-liberation deposits, whether made before or during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. The plan also sets forth the following principles for handling deposits according to their respective circumstances:

(a) Priority shall be given to the vast majority of small-deposit account holders, with due consideration accorded to large-deposit account holders; the repayment multiple will be determined by a tiered, decreasing discount system, offering higher multiples to smaller accounts and lower multiples to larger ones.

(b) The repayment multiple will be calculated on the basis of the current silver-dollar exchange rate.

(c) Only the principal amount of each deposit will be repaid; no interest will be paid.

(d) A phased repayment schedule will be adopted: small accounts will be repaid first, followed by large accounts. Small-account holders will receive full repayment at one time upon presentation of proper documentation, while large-account holders will be registered for installment repayments.