Facing uncertainty in the global financial landscape, the Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum 2025, running in Beijing from October 27 to 30, took on the theme Global Financial Development in an Era of Innovation, Transformation and Restructuring. More than 400 participants from more than 30 countries and regions exchanged perspectives on how to promote high-quality global finance and called for innovation and restructuring, aiming to build a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable global financial system.
Eric Hong Fang, CEO of U.S.-based Skytower Group Inc., an international project development and investment company focusing on sustainable industries, was impressed by the vigorous discussions at the event. “The focus was institutional opening up and financially supporting sustainable industries, demonstrating a strategy to empower innovation through wider financial accessibility,” he told Beijing Review.
The conference was co-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 launch in 2012, the Financial Street Forum has served as a barometer of China’s financial reform and development, and a platform for China to contribute to global financial governance and international financial dialogue.
Policy portfolio
On October 27, Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the PBC, the country’s central bank, said in a keynote speech that over the past year, the overall financing cost of the real economy has remained at a historically low level, creating a favorable monetary and financial environment for China’s economic recovery and the sound operation of financial markets.
The PBC will continue to maintain a supportive monetary policy stance, implement an appropriately accommodative monetary policy and make
comprehensive use of various monetary policy tools to provide short-, medium- and long-term liquidity arrangements, thereby keeping overall financing conditions relatively accommodative, Pan said.
The bank will also accelerate the building of a comprehensive macroprudential management system, prioritizing efforts in areas including strengthening the systemic financial risk monitoring and assessment framework, he added.
Pan also announced plans for the digital yuan, highlighting that the PBC aims to optimize the related management system, improve its positioning among different measures of money supply and support the licensing of more commercial banks as operators of digital yuan business.
The PBC suspended government bond trading at the beginning of this year, citing the imbalance between supply and demand in the bond market and accumulation of market risks. However, the bond market is generally operating well and the PBC will resume open market operations involving government bond trading, Pan said.
Li Yunze, head of the NFRA, stressed that efforts will be made to enable the financial sector to better serve the real economy in realizing sustained, healthy economic and social development and to balance financial development and security.
Financial resources will focus on intelligent, green and integrated programs, support the upgrading of traditional industries and promote the growth of emerging and future industries, Li said.
He also highlighted the need to create a new financial service model that integrates both direct and indirect financing, combines investment in physical assets with investment in human capital, aligns financing terms with industrial development and facilitates interplay between domestic and international markets.
Wu Qing, Chairman of the CSRC, announced that new reforms of the ChiNext Board, China’s Nasdaq-style board for growth enterprises, will be launched. He said listing standards will be set to align more closely with the innovation of enterprises in emerging fields, while providing targeted and inclusive financial services for new industries.
The CSRC will expand high-level opening up, enhance the protection of investor rights and seek to improve the inclusivity, adaptability, attractiveness and competitiveness of China’s capital market, Wu added.
He also unveiled a plan to improve its system for qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs). The plan focuses on improving market access, helping enhance investment efficiency and expanding investment channels, in order to foster a more transparent, convenient and efficient institutional environment for all types of foreign investors. The QFII program, introduced in 2002, allows overseas institutional investors to move money into China’s capital account to encourage controlled flows.
Zhu Hexin, head of the SAFE, said the administration, as China’s foreign exchange (forex) regulator, will roll out new policies aimed at promoting innovative growth in trade.
The SAFE will introduce policies for a cash-pooling program that integrates domestic and foreign currency management for multinational enterprises, the management of funds among domestic companies listed abroad, and integrated forex management reforms and innovations in free trade zones, Zhu said.
China has been promoting cross-border trade and the facilitation of investment and financing, advancing the development of the forex market and creating favorable conditions for entities to effectively allocate forex resources, he noted.
In 2024, the turnover of China’s forex market increased 37 percent compared to 2020, and its foreign-related balance of payments rose 64 percent, Zhu said.
The administration will enhance the capacity for forex supervision, risk prevention and risk control, and promote the high-level institutional opening up of the forex sector, he said.
Seeking certainties
In a video speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the conference, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, warned about risks related to surging equity markets around the world. She said much of the enthusiasm in the financial market reflects a strong global optimism about AI, and called for prudence, vigilance and realism during the utilization of technology.
Pierre Gramegna, Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism, said in a video speech that Europe, like China, believes in the benefits of an open and multilateral world. He pointed out that strengthening the global financial safety net and safeguarding financial stability are particularly vital in the current global setting of geo-economic fragmentation and uncertainty, urging cooperation to protect financial stability.
As investors reassess risks and reallocate assets globally, the stability offered by China is becoming an increasingly important consideration.
According to Fang, the policies rolled out during the conference signal great opportunities in the Chinese market for foreign-funded enterprises like Skytower. Over the past four decades, the company has supported U.S. companies entering the Chinese market, and it is helping Chinese companies invest overseas, especially the Saudi Arabian market, while also facilitating renewed U.S. investment into China.
“We are witnessing a significant policy establishment that will shape China’s development over the next five years and beyond. A key challenge—and opportunity—is building strategic advisory and financial service capabilities to support Chinese enterprises as they go global,” he said.
In his remarks at the opening ceremony of the conference, Vice Premier He Lifeng said China’s financial system needs to advance risk prevention, strengthen regulation, promote high-quality development and push for high-standard opening up.
The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period will be a key time for the goal of basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035, and it will also be a key period to promote high-quality financial development and accelerate the push to become a country with a strong financial sector, he said, adding that the sector should be further involved in the implementation of the 15th Five-Year Plan.
In the world today, changes rarely seen in a century are unfolding at an accelerating pace, presenting both challenges and opportunities in the international financial markets, He said, stressing that China is willing to work with all parties to research global financial governance and advance reforms in the area, and contribute to maintaining global financial stability. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
