Xi stresses role of finance in serving real economy

Xi stressed the need to establish a standard, transparent, open, dynamic and resilient capital market that has sound fundamental institutional arrangements, proper management on market access and exit and tightened full-process supervision on transactions.

He said that financial services conducive to the development of industrial, market, regional and green development systems of a modernized economy shall be provided.

An all-around and multi-level financial service system including venture capitals, bank loans and bond and stock markets shall be put in place, he said.

He called on the country to go along with the general development trend of relying more on innovation, creation and creativity to foster a change in the structure and quality of financial services.

When it comes to the support of financially-strained private enterprises, he said that market laws shall be respected more and that targeted financial services are needed.

Private firms who are temporarily in difficulties but engage in businesses that match well with the national industrial development plans or focus on the real economy, possess leading technologies and enjoy an advantage in the market shall be prioritized, he said.

"The healthy development of the real economy is the foundation to prevent and defuse risks," he said, adding that risk prevention must be based on steady economic growth.

He said that the counter-cyclical adjustment roles of fiscal and monetary policies must be strengthened so as to ensure the Chinese economy could run at a reasonable growth range.

"Risk prevention must be done in a way that can push ahead high-quality economic development," he said.

Xi said preventing and defusing financial risks, especially systemic financial risks, are the fundamental tasks of financial work, calling for accelerated construction of the financial market infrastructure and advanced efforts to nationalize key information infrastructure in the sector.

He also urged solid statistics in the financial sector and improvement in the warning system and rules on information disclosure and management.

Education and supervision of senior officials of financial institutions and regulators should be enhanced, and more should be done to fight corruption in the financial sector, Xi said.

He called for dynamic supervision of domestic and cross-border capital flow to enable financial watchdogs to fully monitor all flows.

Xi said tasks for the reform and opening-up of the financial sector should be well implemented, calling for the preparation and the rolling-out of new reform and opening-up measures based on the latest development of global economy and finance as well as the strategic needs of China.

Reforms including revamps on market access system and trading regulations should be deepened, and regulators should take a two-pronged approach of enforcing both macro-prudential management and micromanagement of behaviors, he said.

He said those causing major financial risks due to their breaches such as lax regulation, cover-ups or decision-making failures must be held accountable and face serious punishment.

Efforts should be made to address the current situation where the costs of legal and regulatory breaches in the financial sector, especially capital markets, are too low, Xi said.

Xi 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.