Financial opening-up seen brightening Shanghai’s image

Shanghai should further advance institutional opening-up in the capital market to better shoulder its responsibility as an international financial center, officials and industry experts said at an industry event on Saturday.

At the Shanghai International Financial Center Development Forum 2022, Tu Guangshao, executive director of the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said continued efforts should be made to seek more innovation in financial tools, products and services so that Shanghai can better strengthen its function as an international financial center.

Tu also stressed the importance of infrastructure construction as it can facilitate further market and institutional opening-up. Institutional opening-up may be more challenging, but it is more fundamental and of long-term significance to Shanghai to better fulfill its responsibilities, he said.

Sun Hui, deputy director of the Shanghai head office of People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, said at the forum that Shanghai should take the lead nationwide in terms of financial reform and opening-up, especially at the institutional level.

Specifically, there can be more innovative products concerning renminbi transactions, investment and risk hedging rolled out in the city so that yuan-denominated cross-border financial products and services can be provided with more convenience and efficiency.

Pudong New Area, the eastern part of Shanghai, should better use its legislative power, which was granted by the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature, in July 2021, so that financial management can be better connected to the judicial and legislative systems, Sun said.

Liu Ti, deputy general manager of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, told the same forum that institutional opening-up in the capital market can facilitate domestic and international circulation. It is with opening-up at the institutional level that the ratio of direct financing can be elevated, the financial sector can better serve the real economy and people’s need to preserve and increase their wealth can be better fulfilled.

In a video speech to the forum, Wu Qing, Shanghai’s executive vice-mayor, said financial transactions in Shanghai during the first 10 months of the year were valued at 2,416 trillion yuan ($335 trillion), up 20 percent year-on-year.

The city has emerged as a preferred destination for foreign financial institutions who now account for over 30 percent of all the financial institutions operating in the city. It is another indicator of the ongoing financial opening-up in Shanghai, Wu said.

In another video speech to the forum, Shang Fulin, chairman of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the nation’s top political advisory body, said Shanghai’s strength in financial opening-up should be further improved to attract more domestic and international providers of financial services.

More first attempts in the financial sector should be made in China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, especially the Lin-gang Special Area, to build Shanghai into a global asset management center so that both Chinese and foreign investors can have their asset allocation and risk management demand better satisfied, Shang said.