By Zhang Liping & Zhao Yunji, Research Team on "China's Financial Reform Strategy" of DRC

Research Report No 70, 2015 (Total 4755)

Abstract:

During a rather long period of time after World War II, the Japanese government exercised a rather strict regulation on financial sectors. With the surging economic development in Japan, the government was facing an increased pressure both from home and abroad to alleviate financial regulation. In the 1970s, not long after becoming the second largest economy in the world, Japan launched a financial liberalization reform focusing on deregulation, which mainly includes the liberalization of interest rates and capital account, the alleviation of regulation on security market as well as the relaxing of restrictions on the segregation of financial business. After that, Japan introduced the structural reform-centered financial "Big Bang". At present, China's financial performance is akin to that of Japan before its financial reform, such as the leading position of banks in the financial system, high saving rate, sustained increase of the huge amount of foreign exchange reserve and relatively strict financial regulation. There is much in Japan's financial reform that China can use as reference.