China ends financial reform meeting
Beijing, January 20:
China closed a high-level economic conference Saturday that had been expected to map out key reforms to improve the management of its increasingly complex financial sector.
Xinhua said the closed-door meeting of top policy-makers had “formulated plans crucial to the country’s financial system over the coming few years.” “The two-day meeting discussed China’s current financial situation and proposed the overall requirements and major targets for the government’s financial work,” Xinhua said in a brief report.
Various state press reports earlier said one of the main proposals would be to grant Central Huijin, an investment holding company under the central bank, more independence in the administration of China’s five trillion dollars worth of state financial assets.
Also on agenda was streamlining unwieldy management of China’s various state economic policy agencies by creating a new super body in charge of the state’s financial affairs. “This meeting is very significant,” said She Dinghuai, finance professor of Beijing University.
“It’s very likely that very important measures on China’s financial reforms will come out after the meeting and they will become the reference point for changes in the following years.” China’s financial system today is a mixture of archaic state-planning and newly introduced market mechanisms, which has made the management of the world’s fourth largest economy an increasingly complex affair.
Some of the major and most controversial challenges lie in the ongoing overhaul of China’s securities markets, creating a more flexible currency regime and giving more teeth to monetary policy.