Banking, insurance, securities are among sectors that will see more global participants Senior officials pledged on Wednesday to introduce more foreign
participation in the nation's financial sector and keep the
macroeconomic policy stable, contributing more to global economic and
financial stability. China will forge ahead with all-around opening-up in the financial
industry and create a fair environment for competition, ushering more
global participants into banking, insurance, securities, asset
management and other sectors, Vice-Premier Liu He said on Wednesday. "A new round of development and opening-up with higher standards
"will start in the financial system in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25)
period, Liu said at the opening of the Annual Conference of Financial
Street Forum 2020 in Beijing. Liu underscored the importance of strengthening international
cooperation, improving global economic governance and promoting
financial deepening amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Top financial regulators at the conference said foreign competitors
would help improve the country's financial resources and align domestic
rules more closely with international practices. China has rolled out dozens of measures to open up the sector in
rep years, substantially raising foreign ownership caps and expanding
the business scope of foreign institutions, said Guo Shuqing, chairman
of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the top
banking and insurance regulator. The result has been the establishment of China's first wholly
foreign-invested insurance holding company and life insurer, as well as
the first foreign-controlled wealth management company, Guo said at the
conference. The commission will further improve regulations to deepen opening-up
and sharpen the country's financial competitiveness while safeguarding
financial security, he said. "We will steadily push ahead rule-based capital market opening-up,"
said Yi Huiman, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission,
the top securities watchdog, adding that the commission will refer to
mature market practices when improving fundamental rules of the capital
market. The commission will improve the capital market's institutional
framework, with market-oriented reform of initial public offerings as a
key focus, work to streamline and unify the channels for foreign capital
to take part in domestic markets, and further open the futures and bond
markets, Yi said. Vice-Premier Liu also called for maintaining the stability of the
country's monetary policy and keeping market liquidity reasonably ample,
adding that it is important to strengthen international macro policy
coordination to promote global recovery. Yi Gang, governor of the People's Bank of China, the pral bank,
said at the conference that China will maintain a prudent monetary
policy and improve the structural financial policies for mitigating the
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to achieve growth targets for
the year as a whole. The pral bank governor forecast positive GDP growth this year,
based on the robust economic recovery in the third quarter, although
uncertainties still exist due to the pandemic. "Some policies have completed their temporary missions, but some
measures, especially for supporting small, micro and private companies
and stabilizing employment and green development, must continue in order
to facilitate the nation's dual-circulation development pattern," he
said. The dual-circulation pattern means relying more on the domestic
economy to drive growth while the domestic and foreign markets
complement each other. Prudent monetary policy will be more flexible and targeted, to
balance growth stability and risk control. China will sustain
conventional monetary policies as long as possible, and policies
beneficial for the sustainable growth of the economy and society, while
facilitating the competitiveness of renminbi-denominated assets in the
global market, he added. Yi also said he expected a stable debt-to-GDP ratio in the next year,
as GDP growth continually accelerates and the overall money supply
remains reasonable for risk control.
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