On October 28th, the Launch of 2021 Tianfu Financial Index and the Seminar on Green Financial Innovation’s Support to Low Carbon Transition, hosted by the School of Finance and Economics of Renmin University of China (RUC), organized by the International Monetary Institute (IMI) and China Fortune Media Group, and supported by the Sichuan Society for Finance and Banking and Sichuan Bank, were held online. This event consisted of the Launch of 2021 Tianfu Financial Index and the Chengdu Summit of the Roundtable on Money and Finance. Leaders, experts and researchers from inside and outside Sichuan attended the event.

In the morning, Ouyang Zehua, Vice Chairman of Sichuan CPPCC and Director of Sichuan Municipal Financial Regulatory Bureau, Yan Baoyu, Secretary of Party Committee and Manager of Chengdu Branch, People’s Bank of China, Liu Yuanchun, Vice President of Renmin University of China, He Qing, Professor of School of Finance and Economics of RUC, Yang Dan, Vice Secretary of Party Committee and President of Beijing Foreign Studies University, Zhu Mengnan, Vice Dean of School of Economics of Xiamen University, and other leaders and experts from governments, universities and the financial sector attended the Launch of 2021 Tianfu Financial Index and delivered speeches online. Dozens of guests from the RUC Tianfu Financial Index team, the Sichuan Financial Regulatory Bureau, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and other departmental leaders participated in the virtual conference moderated by Beijing TV host Li Jie.

Director Ouyang Zehua and Manager Yan Baoyu delivered opening speeches on behalf of the organizers one after another.

On behalf of Sichuan Municipal Financial Regulatory Bureau, Director Ouyang Zehua congratulated the organizers on the success of the launch and expressed his gratitude to friends from all walks of life who have long been concerned about and supporting the economic and financial development of Sichuan Province. He said that the Tianfu Financial Index objectively reflected the actual experience of financial development in 35 major Chinese cities, and also helped Sichuan find the gap in its financial industry, which is a guideline for Chengdu and Chongqing to continue to jointly construct themselves into China’s western financial center. In addition, he pointed out that during the 14^th Five-Year Plan period, Sichuan Province will follow the guidance of China’s dual-carbon target and Sichuan’s outline for the construction of a twin-city economic circle and focus on four priorities: first, to serve the real economy in depth and continue to strengthen the financing support for major projects; second, to continue to deepen financial reform; third, to continuously promote open cooperation; and fourth, to maintain a good financial ecology.

On behalf of the Chengdu Branch, People’s Bank of China and Sichuan Society for Finance and Banking, Manager Yan Baoyu expressed welcome and gratitude to all leaders, experts and guests attending the conference. She said that the financial industry has provided strong support for the real economy, and the Chengdu Branch has been adhering to high-quality development, focusing on strengthening financing support, deepening financial reform and innovation, optimizing financial management services, preventing and resolving financial risks, and continuously improving the quality and effectiveness of financial services for the real economy and regional development. Meanwhile, the Chengdu Branch effectively implements prudent monetary policies, strongly supports the development of key areas and weak links, and vigorously promotes the effective connection between consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty eradication and rural revitalization. In addition, the Chengdu Branch has made financial support for scientific and technological innovation, green, low-carbon and open development a key task, launched the Star Plan for technological innovations’ application in the financial sector, innovated and introduced a special support plan for rediscounting of carbon emission reduction notes, carried out a pilot program for environmental information disclosure by financial institutions, and explored the integration of green finance, inclusive finance and technology-empowered finance.

Vice President Liu Yuanchun delivered a keynote speech entitled “Whether ‘de-realization’ can explain the various performances of asset prices and price levels in this world”. He said that to answer the question of whether the withdrawal of quantitative easing in the U.S. would produce strong panic in the global market and whether the impact would be like that during 2008to 2009, an in-depth analysis on the root causes of the current changes in world asset prices and commodity prices was needed. The driving force of the global financial market is very complex and therefore cannot be simply summarized as “bubbles”. We must see a variety of complex structural problems arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. Vice President Liu believed that under the impact of the pandemic and short-term structural problems, the way to enhance the real economy was not necessarily the so-called “overall financial control,” nor was it necessarily a continuous and simple stimulation of the real economy, but the real need for a combination of relationships which might be more complex than the traditional idea. Thus, policy hedging risks associated with a robust recovery may be more difficult to control than the pandemic itself. Moving forward, greater attention must be paid to short- and medium-term structural issues when weighing growth and recovery against emerging risks.

Professor He Qing reported the“2021 Tianfu Financial Index” at the conference. He mentioned in his speech that the “Tianfu Financial Index” was compiled by the IMI and has been successfully released for four issues. The 2021 Tianfu Financial Index evaluation system consists of a general index, two sub-indices and eight further divided sub-indices. According to the 2021 Tianfu Financial Index, the ranking of the top ten cities is overall stable compared to 2020, with changes in only a few places. The top ten are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Tianjin, Chongqing, and Wuhan. Some central cities have a steadier pace of financial development and are more resilient, better able to drive high-quality economic development and more financially competitive in the new developmental landscape. Beijing and Shanghai further strengthened their national financial management and international financial status; Shenzhen and Guangzhou are facing challenges in terms of the development of their financial sector; Hangzhou improved its financial development in quality and efficiency; Nanjing and Tianjin’s emerging financial sector are developing rapidly; Hefei, Haikou and Changsha explored their own financial development path, whose results are significant; Wuhan’s financial sector has been developing steadily; Chengdu, Wuhan, Chongqing, Xi’an and other emerging financial sectors performed solidly; and Changchun, Harbin and Shenyang have made great strides in financial development.

In this issue of the Tianfu Financial Index, Chengdu’s overall index ranking remains unchanged. In addition, Chengdu performs outstandingly on sub-indices like financial institutions, human resources and cultural finance and has great potential for development. Thanks to the rapid development of the local banking industry, Chengdu’s financial institutions rose 2 places on the sub-index ranking. Chengdu is attractive to talent thanks to its high-quality education, perfect city facilities and especially the government’s strategy for attracting talent. Chengdu ranks No. 4 after Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen on the human resources sub-index ranking. As for the cultural finance sub-index, Chengdu has more prominent advantage, rising from No. 6 to No. 4, mainly due to the increase in its share of PC browsing and the development of its cultural industry.

Compiled by IMI, the Index integrates theory, policy and practice and includes 35 first tier and second tier major Chinese cities. The Index reflects the overall financial development of each central city and the development of the financial market, financial institutions, the environment, human resources, technology-empowered finance, green finance, cultural finance, rural finance and other areas, and enables a better understanding of each city’s financial development and hence synergistic development. Two new sub-indices, the Traditional Finance Index and the Emerging Finance Index, have been added this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so as to reflect the comprehensive financial development of each central city more objectively.

Afterwards, President Yang Dan and Vice President Zhu Mengnan made inspiring comments on the 2021 Tianfu Financial Index Report.

President Yang Dan said that the 2021 Tianfu Financial Index Report evaluated both traditional financial development and compiled emerging financial indices such as technology finance, green finance and cultural finance. The report reflects the researchers’ philosophy of righteousness and innovation, testifies to 2020’sgovernance miracle where China’s economy bucked the trend, to maintain macro stability and high-quality development, and reflects new trends in financial development and relative changes among regions. The report provides guidance for the financial development of major cities and has important theoretical and practical implications. President Yang made three suggestions on future index research: first, to pay more attention to the study of financial openness; second, to focus on the issue of financial inclusion; and third, to focus on the balance between financial development and risk prevention.

Vice President Zhu Mengnan pointed out that the Tianfu Financial Index was systematically and well compiled and provides guidance for future development. The Tianfu Financial Index has the following features. Firstly, it depicts the panorama of financial and economic development of 35 major central cities from multiple dimensions, and illustrates the strengths, characteristics and shortcomings of financial practices in each region. Secondly, it constructs the index system in an all-round way by taking the financial market, inner connections, the way forward, among others into consideration. Thirdly, through a longitudinal and horizontal comparison of the indicators of the 3 levels of the index, the current situation, differences and characteristics of the financial development of 35 major central cities are analyzed, revealing the changing trends of financial development. Fourth, the regional financial development experience and development models are summarized, covering market system, human resources, preparation environment, fintech and humanistic finance. Vice President Zhu suggested that during compilation the Tianfu Financial Index could include more reference such as innovation and quality. Indicators that reflect market competition risk prevention should be set or appropriately added. Samples could be enlarged, and the experience of various parties shall be built on.

The online roundtable was moderated by Guan Wei, Professor of School of Finance and Economics, RUC. Wang Jiangyu, Deputy Manager of Chengdu Branch, People’s Bank of China; Shuai Xu, Deputy Director of Sichuan Municipal Financial Regulatory Bureau; Liang Qizhou, Director of Chengdu Municipal Financial Regulatory Bureau and Secretary of Party Committee of Chengdu Agricultural and Commercial Bank; Lan Hong, Deputy Director of Green Finance Branch of Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences and Green Finance Expert of World Bank; Luo Shiyi, General Manager of Green Finance Department of Industrial Bank Head Office; Tu Yonghong, President of Yangtze River Economic Belt Research Institute of RUC; Huang Jicheng, Associate Professor of School of Finance and Economics, RUC; Wang Yi, Vice President of Sichuan Branch of Agricultural Bank of China; He Jinfeng, Chairman of Sichuan Environmental Exchange; Wang Peng, Professor of Southwest University of Finance and Economics; Ren Hongrui, General Manager of Jintai Insurance, and other guests were engaged in a discussion about how green financial innovation could support China’s transition to a low-carbon economy.