China charm offensive wooing investors in Shanghai, with HSBC, Goldman answering
- Central bank chief Yi Gang tells Bund Summit that the country’s focus on domestic economy does not mean it is shutting the door on the rest of the world
- Pledges come ahead of key Communist Party meeting in Beijing to outline plans for economy over next five years
Chinese financial officials have made fresh promises to open up the financial sector and attract international investors to the country’s main financial centre.
The pledges were made during the Shanghai Bund Summit, a two-day gathering of Chinese bankers and regulators, that offered the country’s leaders an opportunity to showcase their plans to the global financial community ahead of a key policy meeting in Beijing, where President Xi Jinping is expected to map out the country’s development blueprint for the next five years.
One key message China is trying to deliver is that it is committed to deepening its economic and financial ties with the rest of the world even though relations between Beijing and Washington have plunged to their lowest level in decades.
On Saturday, Vice-President Wang Qishan made a rare appearance at the summit and told delegates – who included former US treasury secretary Robert Rubin, hedge fund manager Ray Dalio and Bloomberg chairman Peter Grauer – that “win-win cooperation is the only right choice for the world”.
Yi Gang, the People’s Bank of China governor, told the event on Sunday that China’s “dual circulation” strategy, which will include an increasing emphasis on domestic consumption and innovation, is not intended to shut the door on the rest of the world but to make better use of “domestic and international markets”.
