Shanghai, the metropolis in East China, unveiled its ambition to become a world-leading financial hub in two years Tuesday, The Paper reported.
The two-year action plan, which was rolled out by the government of Shanghai during a press conference Tuesday, specifies that Shanghai must grow into one of the top global financial hubs by 2020.
According to the plan, a top global financial hub means that Shanghai will, after two years of development, build a global financial market which is dominated by RMB-denominated financial products and has a relatively strong capability in allocating financial resources and projecting its influence elsewhere, a fair and law-based financial service system which is innovative, efficient, transparent and open, and an international financial center which is in line with China's economic strength as well as RMB's global status.
The plan says that the progress made by Shanghai in that direction will be measured with three indicators, that is, how well the city internationalizes its financial market, improves its financial services, and optimizes the environment for the development of its financial sector.
Xu Zhong, director of the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China (PBC), emphasized during the conference that Shanghai has always been a pioneer in implementing a number of significant nation-wide financial reforms, and become one of the Chinese cities with the highest level of financial openness in China.
Meanwhile, Xu also pointed out the mismatch between China's economic strength and Shanghai's financial status in the world.
"China is now the world's second-largest economy while Shanghai only comes in fifth on the ranking of global financial hubs," said Xu. "The city still lags behind the world's most developed financial centers."
The plan calls on Shanghai to proceed with financial innovations and reforms by accomplishing three major tasks including improving its plan for the financial development of the China (Shanghai) Free Trade Pilot Zone, launching the Sci-Tech Innovation Board in the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the registration-based IPO rules, and deepening the financial cooperation across China's Yangtze River Delta.
Latest comments