City well-placed to be world financial center

Shanghai has unique advantages to help it become an international financial center and will realize its goal amid China's fast economy expansion and sustained financial reforms, senior government officials said yesterday.

"Shanghai used to be Asia's financial center and it has unmatched territorial advantages and relatively strong economic strength, along with historical and cultural legacies to develop the financial industry," said Vice Premier Wang Qishan in a keynote speech at the first Lujiazui Forum in the city.

Wang said the Chinese government set a goal of building Shanghai into an international center in the early 1990s and that grand blueprint would gradually come true.

"The accelerating financial globalization and innovation have revived the industry," he said. "But at the same time, financial risks are amplifying and spreading faster than ever. The global market is filled with many uncertainties and we should put safeguarding financial security as the top priority."

Wang said China would continue to improve the supervision mechanism of the financial industry, while continuing to open up to overseas markets.

Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said at the forum that Shanghai had a sound hardware environment to become an international financial center.

"Shanghai has established a relatively complete modern financial complex and many national financial institutions have made Shanghai their base," said Liu.

"Shanghai's commercial banks have the best quality in deposit and loan," he said. "Also, the market is open to competition and is the most internationalized in the country."

But there was still a lot to be done before Shanghai became an international financial center, he said.

For example, Shanghai had to improve working conditions in the industry and increase its efforts to attract talent.

It is estimated that 400,000 people work in New York's Wall Street in finance-related jobs and the figure is 250,000 to 300,000 in London. But the figure for Shanghai was only around 100,000 by the end of last year, said Liu.

Shang Fulin, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, told the forum that China's capital market should have a steady and healthy development, which would help accelerate the construction of an international financial center.

Shang said China would strengthen the supervision and evaluation of new financial products and transfer the emphasis from checking institutions to setting standards.

The theme of the Lujiazui Forum is "Deepening financial reform: China and the world."

More than 300 government officials and financial executives are attending the two-day forum at the Pudong Shangri-La hotel, which is co-chaired by Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng and central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan.

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