The Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum 2024 was held in Beijing on October 18-20. Named after Financial Street, a bustling economic hub in downtown Beijing that is home to more than 1,900 financial institutions, the forum aimed to promote communication and cooperation within the financial sector.
It was hosted by the Beijing Municipal Government, the People’s Bank of China (PBC), the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), Xinhua News Agency and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). Since its inception in 2012, the forum has become a bellwether of China’s financial reform and development.
Against the backdrop of numerous challenges impeding global economic recovery, this year’s annual conference was themed Trust and Confidence—Work Together to Promote Financial Openness, Cooperate for Shared Economic Stability and Growth and attended by more than 500 dignitaries from home and abroad.
The conference conveyed positive policy signals from China’s financial authorities in supporting steady economic growth in eight aspects: countercyclical adjustments of monetary policy, optimization of financial supervision, capital market support, foreign exchange market management, financial support for technology innovation, financial opening up, supporting stability of the real estate market, and promoting economic revival.
Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the PBC, said at the forum that the central bank will strengthen countercyclical adjustments through monetary and macroprudential policies, work to make financial support more targeted and effective, and create a favorable monetary and financial environment for stable economic growth and structural adjustments. These indicate that the central bank will continue to support stable economic growth through monetary policy tools such as reserve requirement ratio and interest rate cuts.
Li Yunze, head of the NFRA, said the administration will guide financial institutions to increase financial supply, improve resource allocation and accelerate the flow of funds to support the country’s economic recovery. This demonstrates the positive role financial authorities can play in promoting more efficient flow of funds and supporting the real economy. Li also said the administration will increase financial support to help expand effective demand and facilitate the recovery of the real estate market.
Wu Qing, Chairman of the CSRC, emphasized at the forum the importance of the capital market in financial operations. He introduced a series of measures to improve its high-quality development, including supporting innovative enterprises, enhancing inclusiveness and adaptability, and cultivating patient capital, investment that generates returns over the long run rather than taking quick profits.
Zhu Hexin, head of the SAFE, said the administration will strike the right balance between development and security, and improve foreign exchange management to bring it into line with a higher-standard open economy. This demonstrates that China’s management of foreign exchange will focus on opening up and reform to meet the new demands of economic development.
The conference stressed the importance of opening up the financial sector to the outside world. Measures to steadily promote institutional opening up of financial services and the financial market, improve the connectivity of domestic and international financial markets, and promote trade, investment and financing facilitation were discussed with a view to attracting more foreign investment into the Chinese market.
This year, the global economy is extremely unstable and the Chinese economy faces challenges. The GDP growth dropped from 5.3 percent in the first quarter to 4.6 percent in the third quarter. The country is under mounting pressure to realize the goal of around 5-percent GDP growth for the whole year. Policy information revealed by China’s senior financial officials at the forum indicated that economic stimulus policies recently introduced by the Chinese Government are expected to provide powerful support for the stability and development of the Chinese economy. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
