Cities along Yangtze vow financing cooperation

Four major cities along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River pledged on Saturday to strengthen financing cooperation to boost the regional real economy.

City clusters along the middle Yangtze, China's longest river, will carry out comprehensive cooperation in the financing sector and support innovation in policies, products and management, said a joint proposal released by financial work authorities of Nanchang, Wuhan, Changsha and Hefei. The four cities are provincial capitals of Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Anhui in central and east China.

The proposal urges information-sharing between private and Internet financing enterprises and strict crackdown on illegal financing activities such as underground banks.

"The core task of financing is to serve the real economy," said Li Shuiping, head of the Nanchang Financial Work Office. "Financial institutions should jointly back the development of the region's competitive industries such as equipment manufacturing."

In April, the central government unveiled a plan to develop city clusters along the middle Yangtze in a move to create a new economic growth engine and promote new urbanization. Endi