The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, and finance regulation departments are working together to implement the financial opening-up policies that Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at the Boao Forum for Asia in South China's Hainan Province, a PBOC official said on Wednesday at the event.
During one forum session, Yi Gang, governor of the PBOC, announced six policies that China will implement in the coming several months. [Special coverage]
One of those policies will be the elimination of restrictions on foreign shareholders' stakes in banking and asset management joint ventures (JVs) with Chinese companies.
Another policy will develop a mechanism for improved stock connects between the Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, with daily quotas under the connect scheme set to expand by four times from May this year.
A third policy will enable qualified foreign investors to run insurance agency businesses and insurance assessment businesses.
Yi also said he expects that most of the measures will be implemented by June 30 this year.
In addition, he listed several other measures that China will implement by the end of this year, including the introduction of foreign capital in areas like the trustee and automobile finance sectors, the expansion of the business scopes of foreign banks and the elimination of restrictions on securities JVs.
"I'm pleased to announce that through our joint efforts with the UK, the preparation work for the Shanghai-London Stock Connect is going well… We will open the connect scheme within this year," Yi said.
He added that authorities are also pushing ahead with the implementation of measures for the opening-up of the finance and services sector in an orderly way.
