China fails to set timetable for financial reforms
Investors hoping to see a timetable for yuan convertibility would have looked in vain
True to form, mainland policymakers played safe in setting the latest five-year blueprint for the nation's financial sector, with no ambitious deadlines set for important reforms.
Investors hoping for a timetable providing a countdown to the full convertibility of the yuan and the free movement of yuan exchange rates - the most keenly awaited reform of the sector - would have scoured in vain through the financial reforms of the 12th five-year plan for 2011 to 2015.
The plan was released last month by the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, together with other financial regulators.
All investors would have found was a bland assurance that the government would "improve the RMB exchange rate formation mechanism" and would "gradually realise RMB convertibility under the capital account".
The absence of detail and the stereotyped wording would have been a "disappointment" to investors, especially after expectations of a quicker pace of reforms gained momentum earlier this year, said Lu Zhengwei, an economist at the Industrial Bank in Shanghai.
In April, Beijing broadened the daily trading band of spot yuan against the US dollar from 0.5 per cent in either direction of a reference price set by regulator to a 1 per cent trading band, widely regarded as a step towards loosening controls over exchange rates.