World's financial moguls to attend Beijing forum due next Wednesday

A group of the world's financial moguls are ready to attend the 2004 Beijing international financial forum scheduled for May 19, the organizing committee revealed Sunday.

The one-day event will be sponsored by the Beijing municipal government, People's Bank of China, China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

It will be the first time that state financial watchdogs to stage a financial forum in cooperation with a local government in China, and will be the highest-rating forum catering to the financial industry ever held on the Chinese mainland, the organizing committee said.

Among the 28 would-be participants who will have presentations in the forum, nearly half will come from abroad, and one-third of the 400 other attendees will be heads of China operations of foreign financial institutions.

Robert A. Mundell, a Nobel Prize laureate and the "father of euro", together with nine high-ranking financial specialists from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and from some Fortune 500s, including Chase Manhattan, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, will address the forum.

The theme of the forum will be the development of the financial industry and governance structure thereof as well as risk control.

After China's accession to the World Trade Organization, globalization has become an important topic in China's reform and opening-up. On Dec. 11, 2004, foreign banks will be allowed to start RMB-denominated business in some Chinese cities including Beijing, marking the advent of a new era of China's financial industry.

Meanwhile, the reform of China's major state commercial banks has entered a critical stage, and efforts to recruit overseas strategic investors by smaller commercial banks at home has made initial progress.

Quite a few domestic enterprises have gone public or will get listed on international equity markets, whereas foreign financial institutions have gained access to China's capital market under a QFII (qualified foreign institutional investor) arrangement.

All these are believed to be factors behind the fact that the forum has allured not only industry moguls but also media from abroad.

According to the forum organizing committee, more than 30 overseas media have enrolled to cover the event. Included are the Economist and the Financial Times from Britain and Time and Dow Jones Newswire of the United States.