10th Anniversary Celebration of the Roundtable on Money and Finance and the IMI 2018 New Year Forum
2018-01-21 IMI
This conference was divided into three sections. The first one was the opening ceremony in the morning, themed by “Financial Reform and Opening-up in the New Era” and hosted by Zhang Jie, director of IMI. Famous experts and scholars from foreign and domestic financial management sectors, research institutes and financial industries presented in the meeting and delivered speeches, represented by Liu Wei, president of RUC; Tu Guangshao, general manager (GM) of China Investment Corporation; Ma Delun, chairman of the Banking Accounting Society of China and former deputy governor of People’s Bank of China (PBOC); Li Yang, member of the Academic Committee of CASS and president of National Institution for Finance and Development; Cao Tong, CEO of XFinTech and former vice president of China Import and Export Bank and Zhuang Yumin, dean of the School of Finance of the RUC. More than 100 media reported the event.
In his opening address, Liu Wei pointed out that 2017 was the 80th anniversary since the RUC’s founding. At its celebration, president Xi sent a letter to congratulate and speak highly of the university’s distinct feature and remarkable achievement in humanities and social sciences. The RUC was listed in the Group A of “Double First-class” universities, with 14 first-class disciplines in developing and 9 honored A+ in the 4th round of national discipline evaluation, ranking top all over the country. And finance, as a subject of applied economics, was on the list. Liu said, the IMI and the Roundtable on Money and Finance was a crucial drive in developing the RUC’s financial prospect. For these years, enjoying full support from experts and alumni in domestic financial fields, it has harvested fruitful science and research results and wielded significant academic influence on both financial theories and practices.
2018 saw the beginning of the 19th National Congress of the CPC and witnessed the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up. At the new juncture in history, China’s reform and opening up in financial industry is also anticipated. Over the past 5 years and more, under the leadership of CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi as the core, China continuously advanced its reform and opening up in financial area. But we also have to be aware of the existing contradictions and problems currently. Mr. Liu hoped that the institute and the roundtable can focus on China’s major financial strategies as always, strengthen the studies on fundamental theories and policies and increasingly developed into a world-famous influential research center and a new type think-tank.
Then, Mr. Tu Guangshao, Mr. Ma Delun, Mr. Li Yang and Mr. Cao Tong gave their keynote speeches respectively.
Mr. Tu analyzed the development of cross-border investment and financial services since the reform and opening up. From the early stage of 1980s to the new era, China’s demand for opening up has transformed from introduction of foreign capital and commodity exports to a “double engine”: creating investment environment and investing overseas. He mentioned that a sound interaction between investment abroad and introduction of foreign capital was a significant symbol for improving the level and ability of opening up, which requires clear strategic position and efficient mechanism and measures. And according to Tu, an effective inter-connection between industry, investment and finance was critical for innovating foreign investment. Finance investment overseas should form a better mechanism to drive the development of economic exchanges all over the world and the new-form globalization.
Mr. Ma Delun first discussed the cause of the subprime crisis happened one decade ago: financiers’ betrayal to the industry. In comparison, China’s financial market never suffered from real crisis, so we must hold firmly to the bottom line of the systematic financial risk. The past 10 years of the roundtable witnessed China’s achievements in financial industry since the reform and opening up. Mr. Ma thought, restraint from the framework of prudent monetary policy and strict supervision and regulation, China’s financial and operational strategies and actions would change, but the root still lies on internal self-consciousness. For goals in the long run, only when we take each single step bit by bit, our reform and opening up will be furthered.
Targeting at the financial reform brought up at the 19th National Congress, Mr. Li Yang elaborated on the features of China entering an era of high-quality development from 4 aspects: financing needs of real economy, maturity and equity mismatch in the financial system, development of capital market and improvement of long-term credit institutions. Based on detailed explanations to interest rate liberalization, he presented policy suggestions to improve interest rate market mechanism and brought forward his opinions on deposit reserve system needs to “return to normal”. In the new period, new principles were introduced for deepening the reform of interest rate liberalization. We shall step up our efforts in finance supervision and regulation and local financial system consolidation. Li also pointed out that the key for managing financial risks lies on “de-leverage”. Currently, leverage ratio in China’s non-finance sectors levels off, and the focus of de-leveraging should be on enterprises, especially on SOEs, and local governments in disposing risks.
Mr. Cao Tong then made a speech themed by “the ABS asset securitization tool”, and he shared us his views on the relationship between finance and real economy. He told us the ABS asset securitization tool was able to help with low-ratings companies. China attached great importance to asset securitization in recent years, but there were still many objective problems existing while a number of policies coming out. He advised that we could pay attention to the development of cloud platform, i.e. the ABS cloud, a horizontal environment, which may better help small and medium enterprises to finance and deal with information asymmetry in the financial market.
Section 2 included four themes. Theme One to Three were open forums, chaired by Zhao Xijun, associate dean of the School of Finance of RUC.
Theme One “the Interpretation and Outlook of China’s Wealth Management Development Index” was hosted by Mr. Cao Tong and the index analyzed by Mr. Tan Songtao, associate dean of the School of Finance of RUC. In this discussion, Shen Jianguang, chief economist in Mizuho Investors Securities, addressed with “Wealth Opportunities on China’s Economy Overtaking”; Wang He, executive director and vice president of the People’s Insurance Company of China Property and Casualty Co., Ltd (PICC P&C), brought up an idea claiming “Insurance is the advanced form of wealth management”; You Yu, standing vice president of Zhong Rong International Trust Co., Ltd, discussed about the development characteristics of China’s wealth management market and practices of trust industry; Zhou Guangwen, IMI’s academic committee member, president of Beijing Gintong Investment Co., Ltd and Ginkgo Asset Management Co., Ltd, expressed his own thoughts on “the Artificial Intelligence, block chain and wealth”; Zhou Ligao, Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of NOAH (China) Holdings Co., Ltd, introduced the framework of risk management quantization in asset management; and Zhuang Enyue, vice president of China Cinda Asset Management Co., Ltd, analyzed the disposal of bad assets through actual examples.
Theme Two, titled with “the Interpretation of the Tianfu Financial Index and Analysis on Macro Economy and Finance”, was hosted by Guan Wei, executive director of the Credit Management Research Center (CMRC) of the RUC and professor of the School of Finance and the index interpreted by Tu Yonghong, deputy director of IMI and assistant director of the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Financial Work. Wei Jianing, advisor from the Department of Macroeconomic Research of the Development Research Center (DRC) of the State Council, shared his views on the regional layout of finance and reforms on state-owned and private enterprises; Wu Ge, chief economist of the Hua Rong Securities (HRS), made a speech themed by “Price Illusion or Real Growth”; Yang Tao, director’s assistant of the Institute of Finance and Banking (IFB) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), talked about his opinions on the construction of regional financial center and local finance development; Zhou Yueqiu, director of the Urban Finance Research Institute of the ICBC and secretary-general of the China Urban Financial Society, believed that “in evaluating the current economy, both the quantity and the structure should be focused on”.
Theme Three was hosted by Mr. Zhao Xijun, under the theme of “the RMB exchange rate stability and opening-up of financial market”. Aiming at the exchange rate reform, Mr. Chen Weidong, director of the International Finance Institute of the Bank of China, shared his views. Ding Jianping, associate dean of the Shanghai Institute of International Finance Center and director of the Research Center for Modern Finance SHUFE, analyzed the relationship between the Return on Assets (ROA) curve and interest rate curve in RMB internationalization. And Liu Jun, vice GM of China Investment Corporation, from the perspective of investment, pointed out that an open financial market requires the RMB internationalization. Wang Yongli, former vice president of the Bank of China, delivered a keynote speech on account of “Exchange rate: Seek Improvement in Stability”. Zhang Liqing, former dean of the School of Finance of the Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE), mentioned that “in pushing forward finance liberalization, we also need prudential supervision and regulation”.
Theme Four “the Double Pillar Regulatory Framework and Systematic Risk Prevention”, hosted by executive director of IMI Ben Shenglin, was a closed-door meeting. Wang Guogang, professor of the School of Finance of the RUC and member of Academic Committee of CASS, addressed with “Preventing Risks: The Focus of Double Pillar Regulation”; Wang Yi, director general of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Finance (MOF), discussed the issue of macro-prudence from financial perspective; Yan Xiandong, deputy director general of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the PBOC, shared his thoughts on financial risks; Qu Qiang, director of China Financial Policy Research Center, explained the formation of twin pillar; Li Wenhong, director of the Banking Innovation Supervision Department of CBRC, analyzed in detail the regulatory framework of macro-prudential supervision; and Tang Wenjin, dean of the School of Finance of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, brought forward his ideas that “the double pillar regulatory framework is a new structural practice for macro regulation”.
At the closed-door forum, many other guests also shared their excellent views: Wei Benhua, former deputy administrator-in-bureau of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange; Hu Xuehao, deputy director-general of the Finance Department of the MOF; Feng Bo, former GM of Dalian Commodity Exchange; Zhao Haiying, CRO of China Investment Corporation; Wu Zhifeng, director of the International Strategy Division 1 of China Development Bank (CDB) Center for Financial Research & Development; Wang Lin, deputy director-general of the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Financial Work; Zhong Hong, deputy director of the International Finance Institute of the Bank of China; Fan Xiwen, CRO of China-LAC Cooperation Fund; Hong Hao, managing director and the Chief Strategy Analyst of BOCOM International; Guo Qingwang, professor of the School of Finance of the RUC; Wang Changyun, director of the academic committee of Hanqing Advanced Institute of Economics and Finance of the RUC; Chen Qiqing, director of the Economics Department of the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC; Xu Yisheng, CEO of the New Momentum Asset Management; Wang Guangyu, dean of China Academy of New Supply-side Economics and president of China Soft Capital; and Wang Zuogang, senior director of Ant Financial.
Besides for the speakers mentioned above, there were a plenty of guests joined in the discussions, including: Zhang Zhixiang, former director general of the International Department of the PBoC; Ding Rongxiang, full-time external director of central enterprises; Sun Lujun, president of the CNIC Corporation Limited; Gu Jianguo, president of China Jianyin Investment Limited; Wu Nianlu, deputy director of China International Finance Society and standing director of China Finance Forum; Peng Xiaoguang, deputy director of the IMI and China Urbanization Promotion Council; Li Zheping, deputy director of the IMI and executive president and editor-in-chief of Modern Bankers; Di Dongsheng, vice dean of the School of International Studies of the RUC; Su Zhi, professor of the School of Statistics and Mathematics of the CUFE and deputy director of China Center for Internet Economy Research; Zhu Xinrong, professor of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law; Han Yong, vice GM of the Bangxin Asset Management Co., Ltd; Xiang Zhengrong, assistant president of the Union Mobile Financial Technology (UMF); Zhao Qing, vice president of the Elements Credit; and Wang Jinling, deputy director of the Finance Office of Qingdao City. And all research fellows of IMI and guests taking part in previous roundtable meetings were also presented at the event.
The third section was Qiu Shi Night-chats hosted by Mr. Song Ke, deputy director of IMI. Prof. Ben Shenglin made a conclusion and reviewed over the achievements IMI has gotten during the year of 2017, and set a course to the new year. The meeting witnessed the graduation ceremony of the Gintong Global Talents Program, and directors of IMI awarded diplomas to the students. Sun Hualing, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Finance of RUC, presented at the meeting and gave closing remarks. In the toast, she approved the academic achievements the roundtable meetings made in the past one decade, expressing her wishes to IMI’s future and her support and encouragement to Gintong Program.
