China capable of resolving external impacts: central bank governor

BEIJING, March 25 (Xinhua) -- China's financial sector is capable of resolving external impacts, the country's central bank governor said Sunday when responding to questions on possible new risks from rising global uncertainties.

"If external impacts spread to China, our banking system and securities and insurance markets, equipped with quantity and price regulation, are fully capable of defusing the risks," Yi Gang, head of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), said at the China Development Forum in Beijing.

Yi stressed the significance of forestalling systemic risks and dealing with domestic issues. "If we can handle our own issues properly, we will have a sound foundation to fend off external impacts."

When addressing the forum, the newly-appointed PBOC chief listed the country's main financial work as to implement prudent and neutral monetary policy, promote financial reform and opening up, and defuse major financial risks to maintain stability.

As the economy has posted better-than-expected performance, China will keep its policy stance and strengthen financial support for the real economy, Yi said. The macro prudential regulatory framework will be improved, and M2, new loans and total social financing will see reasonable growth.

Steady progress has been made in China's financial opening up and more measures are in the pipeline to ease access control, Yi said. "China will in the next step comprehensively adopt a negative list for market access management to propel two-way opening up in its financial sector."

Yi said China will steadily push for the internationalization of the renminbi, with efforts to further liberalize the capital account and enhance the global use of the currency.

Yi also highlighted the ongoing battle against financial risks, saying the country will move to fix short links in financial supervision and crack down on illegal activities.

He cited risks in corporate leverage, market violations such as shadow banking, and some rampant financial holding companies.

China will adopt market-based measures including the debt-to-equity swap to rein in the rapid growth of social overall debts, Yi said. Enditem