G20 Hangzhou Summit to be China's Open Day for finance

Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei delivers a speech at the opening of the first Meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Shanghai on February 26 [Xinhua]

China will take the G20 presidency for the first time this year and report to other major countries in September regarding its promised accelerated reform on the financial market.

Sources revealed that there will be heavy news announced during the G20 Summit which may include the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, the Shanghai-London Stock Connect, and the reforms concerning China's central bank as well as the three financial regulatory bodies. Once the Shanghai-London Stock Connect opens, China's A-Share is more likely to be included in the MSCI Inc.'s global indexes.

Financial restructuring is apparently one of the key areas of China's reforms, in which the opening-up of the financial sector has drawn heavy attention from international investors. Therefore, decision makers in China have been mulling over how to accelerate the financial reform so as to make the sector more accessible to foreign capital.

Not long ago, the Chinese currency was included in the SDR, a clear sign of the quickening pace of China's financial reform and opening-up policies. With the Chinese yuan's inclusion, there are growing international expectations for China's financial sector.

These expectations are reasonable as China has made concrete steps forward in terms of financial reform and opening-up. Beijing has made fundamental breakthroughs in liberating its exchange rate, launching the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, initiating the AIIB and opening the financial sector to private capital. These achievements have reflected higher openness and a marketization of China's financial sector as it docks with international practices.

Blessed by its financial reforms, China's finance now enjoys an expanding influence and rising global role, particularly evident in the latest international financial crisis as China played a vital role instabilizing the world's financial market.

China joined the SDR last year; the country's AIIB proposal was positively greeted by a handful of countries, especially Western powers like Britain, France, and Germany. This shows that China's financial reform has boosted Beijing's international status and expanded its influence on the global financial market.

The Hangzhou Summit will be China's first time taking the G20 presidency, a valuable chance to announce major reform achievements. It, therefore, is highly likely that the summit will be an Open Day for China's financial sector.

Foreign governments, international organizations and investors will be mostly concerned about China's reform of the financial regulatory system as the latest international financial crisis caused the world to reflect on the current financial regulatory mechanisms. China, as a country continuing reforms, hopes to improve its own financial regulatory system in order to make it more adaptable to the market economy.

Hence, reform plans to be unveiled in Hangzhou will help the world better understand China's financial reforms and help the country's financial sector integrate into the international financial market.

To sum up, the upcoming G20 Summit shall play a positive role in helping raise the country's financial efficiency and China will certainly seize the chance to exhibit the progress in the reform and opening-up of its financial sector. To make it happen, agencies across the government should work on perfecting all reform measures, especially those concerning docking with the international regulatory system while considering the actual situation of China's own financial development.

The author is a contributor for China.com.cn.

The article was translated by Chen Boyuan. Its unabridged version was published in Chinese.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.