On April 12, Conference on Foreign-funded Banks in China was held in Beijing.

So far 192 operations have been set up by 64 foreign banks from 19 nations and regions and 88 of them have been approved for RMB business. Total assets of these foreign-funded banks in China have reached 49.5 billion USD. In addition, foreign-funded banks have opened 209 representative offices in China.

Governor of the People's Bank of China Zhou Xiaochuan, Deputy Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong, Minister of State Statistics Bureau Li Deyong and Director of State Administration of Foreign Exchange Guo Shuqing were present at the conference as special guests at invitation. They delivered important speeches on China's macro economy, monetary policy, policy of foreign capital utilization and policy of forex control.

Liu Mingkang, Chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), China's banking watchdog, made a speech at the conference on "Supervising line with the law, opening wider, and promoting healthy sustained development of foreign-funded banks in China".

His report briefed major recent progress on China's banking reform, stressed the significance of honoring China's WTO commitment on opening the banking sector, and elaborated measures to improve supervision and services for foreign-funded banks and facilitate the healthy development of these banks.

He vowed in his speech that CBRC would follow the guideline of achieving a trade-off between supervision and opening-up and between supervision and development on the principle of keeping line with the law, transparency, fairness and efficiency.

China's banking sector has sped up its opening further to the outside competitors since China's WTO accession. Restrictions of geographic distribution and clients on forex services offered by foreign banks have been lifted and RMB business has been open to overseas banks in 13 cities from only two, Beijing and Shanghai, before China's WTO membership.

From Dec. 1, 2003, qualified foreign banks are allowed to offer RMB services to Chinese enterprises. Ratio of equity of foreign financial institutions in Chinese-funded commercial banks has also been increased.

239 representatives form 172 foreign funded banks attended the conference. Leaders present at the meeting answered questions put forward by these representatives.

By People's Daily Online