By Zhang Chenghui, Research Institute of Finance, DRC

The next five years will be a very critical period for China's economic transformation and also one for an array of reforms including financial reform in China.

Under the new normal, transformation of real economy has posed higher requirements for China's financial services, financial market, and financial institutions. The key solution lies in promoting the efficiency of China's financial services and the risk management capability of China's financial system. First of all, economic transformation demands that financial institutions should follow a service-oriented model, targeting the community-level public. Second, change in the mode of enterprise operation requires that financial institutions should adjust the focus of their business. Third, the development mode of the financial sector should shift its goal from expanding scale to raising efficiency as soon as possible. Fourth, the financial market must provide as many products as possible for the real economy, create more instruments for asset management, risk hedge, investment, and financing for both parties of the transaction, and help enterprises to better cope with changing market circumstances and operational risks.

The serious challenges that China's financial transformation faces would be best exemplified by adjustment in the ideas of financial development and the interests of different sectors. How to tackle the problem of financial risks that are bound to arise during the transition? How to further improve and refine the mechanisms for coordination among financial regulatory sectors, between financial regulatory sectors and administrative sectors, between the central government and local governments, and between financial policy and macro policy? How to realize regulatory fairness? How to further strengthen the financial legal system? What is the next step of reform in state-controlled financial institutions? These are questions to be answered.