Answering call of the times for China's financial development

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- At the end of October this year, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, attended the central financial work conference and delivered an important speech.

The speech made by Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, was hailed as "answering a series of major theoretical and practical questions concerning financial development in a scientific manner...providing fundamental guidance for promoting the high-quality development in the financial sector on the new journey in the new era."

Under Xi's guidance, the CPC leadership has affirmed China's commitment to pursuing financial development with Chinese characteristics while further enhancing the high-quality development of its financial sector to provide strong support for fully building China into a strong country and achieving national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization.

Back in February 2019, while presiding over a group study session of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, Xi stressed the need to deepen understanding of the essence and laws of finance, based on China's actual situation, and embark on a path of financial development with Chinese characteristics.

In July 2017, at the National Financial Work Conference, Xi proposed three tasks: serving the real economy, preventing and controlling financial risks, and furthering financial reform, while calling for efforts to facilitate the sound, circular and healthy development of the economy and finance.

"Finance is a core competitiveness of a nation. Financial security is an important component of national security, and the financial system is a basis for economic and social development," Xi had said.

He also put forward many principles for improving financial work, such as "finance should return to its original purpose and serve the development of the economy and society" and "the financial sector should be market-oriented, and the market should play the decisive role in allocating financial resources."

The central financial work conference reiterated Xi's understanding of the roles of finance and went further to elaborate on the key principles for pursuing financial development in the Chinese way. These principles include following the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee over financial work, upholding the people-centered approach as value orientation, and adapting Marxist financial theory to the specific realities of contemporary China and excellent traditional Chinese culture.

Regarding financial risk prevention, Xi emphasized in July 2017 that "preventing systemic financial risks is the eternal theme of the financial sector." These views were echoed at the central financial work meeting, highlighting the importance of upholding "risk prevention and control as the eternal theme of financial work."

At the central financial work conference, the CPC leadership urged the need to stay sober-minded as "various issues and problems in the financial sector are intertwined and affect each other, and some of them are quite prominent, such as potential financial risks, low quality and efficiency of financial services to the real economy, repeated financial disorders and corruptions, and weak financial supervision and governance capacity."

In safeguarding financial security, Xi has noted that "priority should be given to preventing and defusing systemic financial risks, and effective measures should be taken to spot any risks and address them early," as well as "preventing risks in key areas and improving financial security mechanisms and emergency response mechanisms."

According to him, the financial sector should respond to the diversified needs of the people and the real economy.

Xi also attaches great importance to financial reforms and opening up. During the group study in February 2019, he urged "enhancing the global competitiveness of China's financial sector, elevating the two-way opening-up to a higher level and beefing up capabilities of financial management and risk prevention and control amid greater opening-up."

According to the latest arrangements rolled out by the central financial work conference, China will steadily expand institutional opening up in the financial sector, facilitate cross-border investment and financing, and attract more foreign financial institutions and long-term capital to invest and operate in China.

Regarding the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi has stressed the need to be innovative in financing the initiative and design relevant mechanisms to this end.