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UPDATED: February 20, 2012 NO. 8 FEBRUARY 23, 2012
Money Hub
Shanghai is set to become the focus of global financing
By Lan Xinzhen
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EMERGING FINANCIAL HUB: The financial zone across the Huangpu River in Shanghai (CHEN FEI)

Fang Xinghai, Director of the Shanghai Financial Service Office, is hard at work on one goal: By 2020 Shanghai will be an "international financial center in tandem with the national economic strength and the international status of the renminbi."

The overall plan was announced by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on January 30.

Early in 2009, the State Council decided to turn Shanghai into China's international financial center. The transition period China has set to completely open its capital account ends in 2020. The NDRC hopes, via the plan, to make Shanghai a global financial hub before opening the capital account in 2020.

At the end of 2010 there were 1,049 financial institutions in Shanghai, including 21 Shanghai-headquartered foreign-invested banks, five joint venture securities companies, 22 joint venture asset management companies, eight foreign-invested property insurance companies and 11 joint venture life insurance companies.

The commission said the run-up to 2015 will be "a period of strategic opportunities" for the construction of the international financial center, and by 2015 Shanghai will become a global center of renminbi product innovation, trading, clearing and pricing.

Fang said Shanghai has formulated detailed plans, including accelerating improvement of the financial market system, establishing a renminbi cross-border payment and clearance center and speeding up reform and innovation of the financial market.

Strategic opportunities

Now at an important strategic crossroad, Shanghai stands poised to become a hub for international financing.

The world economic and financial structure is accelerating adjustment as it recovers from the global financial crisis, and China's status as a world power is improving. In the coming years, the tendency of multi-polarization and economic globalization will continue to deepen, the world economic structure will be further adjusted, and the role of emerging economies represented by China and India will be more significant. Emerging economies and developing countries will have more say in international financial affairs and global transnational financial transactions will be more in favor of emerging economies. These changes will offer better opportunities for Shanghai to accelerate its transformation into a global financial hub.

China's rapid economic growth has been just the engine Shanghai needs as it rolls down the road to the global financial hub. China's economic strength will continue to improve in the coming years. The country's economic development will feature in accelerated restructuring and transformation of the development pattern, and a Shanghai-centered world-level city with strong international competitiveness will be formed.

In order to better adapt to its economic restructuring, transformation of the development pattern and improvement of international competitiveness, China will further accelerate reform and opening up in the financial sector. More progress will be made in construction of a multi-level financial market system and in the reform of market-oriented interest rate. Furthermore, the exchange rate formation mechanism will be steadily promoted, the proportion of direct financing will be greatly raised, and the role of the financial market in resource allocation will be remarkably enhanced.

As China's economic strength improves and convertibility of the renminbi is increased, the demand for the renminbi as a clearance, investment and reserve currency by foreign traders will grow.

What Shanghai needs to do now, Fang said, is utilize favorable conditions to push forward the construction of an international financial center.

Present situation

According to the NDRC plan, Shanghai has been busy building itself into an international financial center by enhancing construction of the financial market system and focusing on financial reform, opening up and financial innovation.

Shanghai's financial market system has been continuously improved and the scale of financial market has been markedly increased, with the opening of the China Financial Futures Exchange and Shanghai Clearing House. The Shanghai inter-bank offered rate was successfully launched, and Shanghai has consolidated its status as a molding ground for the renminbi benchmark exchange rate and benchmark interest rate. Medium-term notes, gold futures, zinc futures and stock index futures, which are becoming more influential in Shanghai's financial market, has greatly enhanced the trading and pricing function of the Shanghai financial market.

According to figures from the Shanghai Municipal Government, in the past five years the city's financial market scale has grown. In 2010 the trading volume of Shanghai's financial market (excluding foreign exchange market) stood at 386.2 trillion yuan ($61.4 trillion), up by 10 fold than that in 2005; and the volume of direct financing totaled 2.38 trillion yuan ($378.38 billion), up by 2.4 fold than that in 2005.

Statistics from Shanghai also showed that the ranking of Shanghai's financial market is growing. In 2010 the trading volume of Shanghai's stock exchange ranked third in the world, and the year-end stock value ranked sixth; the deposited bond balance at the National Inter-Bank Funding Center ranked fifth in the world; the number of contracts traded at the Shanghai Futures Exchange ranked second among global commodities and futures exchanges, making Shanghai one of the three pricing centers for non-ferrous metals; and the spot trading volume of gold at the Shanghai Gold Exchange ranked first.

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