During the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), the China International Finance Annual Forum (CFAF) 2020 was held with the theme of “New Finance, New Opening, New Development”. In recent years, Beijing has played an active role in furthering the opening-up of China's financial sector by giving full play to its comprehensive advantages in financial regulation, infrastructure, market environment, human resources and professional services. It has increasingly become the first choice for foreign financial institutions that want to operate in China.
Beijing is the first to realize opening-up across all financial sectors. Since 2018, more than 40 foreign financial institutions have established their presence or expanded their investments in Beijing. These enterprises include the three major rating agencies (Standard & Poor's, Fitch Ratings, and Moody's), the two major bank card clearing agencies (Mastercard and Visa), internationally renowned investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, UBS and Credit Suisse, as well as international financial organizations such as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). Their businesses cover various fields such as insurance, securities, asset management, fintech, payment and settlement, and credit rating. With the most comprehensive and complete system for opening up the financial sector, Beijing is becoming a preferred destination for foreign investment in China.
Beijing has been steadily easing restrictions on financial market access and pushing forward the convertibility of renminbi under the capital account. It firstly implemented a series of reform measures in Zhongguancun to facilitate capital projects, launched a pilot project for Qualified Domestic Limited Partners (QDLP) which represents a more convenient and flexible investment method, and established an international RMB debt-equity investment fund.
Beijing has pursued the coordinated development between financial opening-up and professional services. On three occasions since 2015, the State Council has approved Beijing's pilot program to further open up the service sector. The city has introduced more than 120 innovative opening-up measures – either doing it earlier than other cities or outperforming them in the results. In addition to finance, it has continued to enhance its opening up in professional services such as law, accounting, education, medical care, human resources and intellectual property, forming a new system and mechanism for an open economy featuring the service sector.
Besides opening up its financial sector, Beijing also focuses on regulation and risk prevention. It has established a local coordination mechanism for financial regulation and risk management. Under the leadership of regulatory authorities, Beijing has launched a pilot “sandbox” project on financial regulation, cracking down on illegal financial activities in accordance with the law, strengthening monitoring and early warning of financial risks, and enhancing its ability to defuse regional financial risks in an open environment.
Next, Beijing will ensure the implementation and application of the achievements of the 2020 CIFTIS and its financial sector, and will leverage the role of the Financial Street Forum as a main national financial platform, in a bid to comprehensively enhance Beijing's influence in international financial governance. It will continue to deepen the reform and innovation of fintech, take the dual advantages of Beijing as the center for both science and technology innovation and national financial management, and highlight the digital economy, digital finance, and regulatory technology, so as to build an innovation center for fintech with global influence.
It is noteworthy that Beijing will carry out in-depth pilot “regulatory sandbox” projects in cutting-edge fintech such as digital currency at the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and other areas, in order to achieve breakthroughs. It will support the R&D of the underlying technology of fintech and expand its application for further development of digital financial governance and digital facilities.
Beijing will promote a higher level of financial opening-up and cooperation through intensifying publicity, promotion and investment attraction to draw quality domestic and foreign financial institutions and resources to Beijing. It will support the development of joint-venture financial management companies and other institutions, as well as foreign-funded securities, futures, funds and personal insurance companies; and welcome foreign-funded institutions in Beijing to participate in stock, bond, foreign exchange and fund transactions, as well as Beijing QDLP cross-border RMB trade and investment facilitation and other pilot reform projects. It will also strengthen international cooperation in financial management, fintech and green finance to build a global green financial center, and facilitate global capital operation centers' setting up of multinational corporations and international business incubation to build an international venture capital investment cluster.
