Nearly 5 million Chinese women received micro-financing worth 247.8 billion yuan ($38.1 billion) in 2015, the All-China Women's Federation said on March 8.

Central and local government subsidies contributed more than 21.37 billion yuan ($3.29 billion)to this sum.

China began issuing micro-financing to women to encourage entrepreneurship and poverty reduction in 2009. The loans have helped boost the economy in underdeveloped western and rural regions, according to the federation.

Another policy benefiting rural women is free screenings for breast and cervical cancer, a program that has also been implemented since 2009.

In 2015, more than 50 million rural women have received free cervical cancer examinations and about 7 million breast cancer tests, the federation said.

The government also provided medical assistance for 41,693 poverty-stricken women suffering severe diseases in the past year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2016)