Enhanced financial cooperation under RCEP urged amid rising global risks

With the global economic and financial environment becoming increasingly complex, members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) need to enhance cooperation to promote the economic recovery and safeguard financial stability, officials and economists suggested on Tuesday at the ongoing Financial Street Forum 2022 in Beijing. The more complex and severe the international environment becomes, the greater the need for Asian economies to strengthen practical cooperation, jointly promote the economic recovery, accelerate the integration of industrial chains and safeguard the stability of regional financial markets, Zhou Liang, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said at a parallel session of the forum in Beijing.

Zhou suggested that Asian economies need to step up macro policy coordination, improve regular communication mechanisms, and synergize development strategies. Useful experience in inclusive finance, such as agriculture, poverty alleviation, and the development of small and micro-sized enterprises, could be shared, and nations could join hands to promote the growth of green finance and cultivate an open, fair and non-discriminatory digital financial services environment to bridge the digital gap, according to Zhou.

In addition to the traditional trade in goods, the opening-up and cooperation in the financial sector is one of the highlights of the RCEP agreement, Wang Wen, chief economist of China Export & Credit Insurance Corp, said at the forum. Starting from 2008, China has been establishing bilateral currency swap agreements and bilateral settlement agreements with the central banks of RCEP economies, and the scale of these agreements has been increasing, Wang said. In the first nine months of 2022, The Bank of China (BOC) processed more than 400 billion yuan ($56 billion) of crossborder yuan settlements with other RCEP members and provided over $250 billion in settlement services for commodity trade among RCEP economies, Liu Jin, head of BOC said at the forum.