China's central bank pledges to continuously improve financial services

Governors from the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, met representatives from major foreign financial institutions on Wednesday, as the central bank is to further improve the country's business environment and promote high-level financial opening-up, according to a press release seen on the central bank's website on Thursday.

Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the PBOC, said the country is committed to continuing the steady promotion of institutional opening-up in financial services, enhance cross-border financial market connectivity, boost convenience in trade and investment and fund-raising, and build a market-oriented and law-based international business environment to accelerate China's sustained economic growth and high-quality development of the financial sector.

Pan said China's economic fundamentals and favorable conditions such as the huge market, strong economic resilience and great potential have remained unchanged. Also, the recently announced and implemented stimulus policy package has received positive feedback from both home and abroad. It has vigorously boosted social confidence, the governor said.

The central bank has vowed to pursue a balanced approach to economic growth and development quality. The PBOC will continue to keep the monetary policy while enhance market communication to improve the quality and impact of the financial services.

A total 11 foreign financial institutions including HSBC, Citibank, Standard Chartered and DBS attended the meeting, according to the press release.

These financial institutions acknowledged the PBOC's recent positive efforts in advancing financial sector reform and opening-up, improving the business environment, and optimizing the management of cross-border financial data flow.

Lately, a package of financial stimulus policies has boosted the high-quality development of Chinese economy while maintaining financial market stability, and as a result, the expectations and confidence of foreign businesses have notably increased, the attending foreign financial institutions noted.

They hope that the central bank can continue to strengthen communications with them about policies and to boost the implementation of the incremental pro-growth policies.

Xuan Changneng, deputy governor of the PBOC, also attended the meeting.