Top news of the week:

• CSRC re-emphasizes commitment to opening up

  August 23, 2021

  On 20 August, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) held a mid-year work meeting on monitoring and regulation. The CSRC chairman Yi Huiman delivered a report titled “upholding progressing with stable paces and achieve high quality development of the capital market with deepening of reform and opening-up”, making it the second time within a month for the authority to emphasize China’s dedication to opening up.

• Minister of Commerce highlights opening-up and importance of FTZs

  August 24, 2021

  On 23 August, Minister of Commerce, Wang Wentao spoke at a news conference in Beijing about the ongoing mission to expand economic opening up and continue to pilot new methods of reform in FTZs and target areas alongside aligning with international rules for trade and economics. Wang echoed the sentiments of top leaders, saying that opening-up is the path China must follow to achieve national prosperity. Wang also stated that the negative lists would continue to be shortened to allow more foreign direct investment across sectors.

• Shanghai releases plan to become international financial center by 2025

  August 25, 2021

  On 24 August, the Shanghai city government introduced their plan for development of Shanghai as an international financial center during the 14th Five-Year Plan period of 2021-2025. In this new period of development, the city set out six specific goals. To achieve these goals, Shanghai will optimize the financial services industry through digitalization and green finance development, while also stimulating the development of sci-tech.

• State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) re-evaluates SOEs

  August 26, 2021

  On 25 August, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) held a media briefing session to introduce the status of the three-year SOE reform actions, showing that the central SOEs are accelerating their path to restructure and integrate, and the market may expect a new central SOE group to make its debut soon. SASAC once again mentioned that there will be new central SOE groups, which will focus on logistics, power transmission and distribution, strategic resources, grain reserve and processing, and marine engineering equipment sectors.

• Common prosperity stokes panic for upper classes

  August 27, 2021

  On 26 August, Han Wenxiu, Executive Deputy Director of the General Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission (the top financial organ within Communist Party of China), attended a press conference to explain “Common Prosperity” which has led to panic amongst the upper classes. Han publicly stated that the notion of common prosperity is not the government’s goal to “rob the rich to help the poor” but rather a mid-long-term goal which targets to eliminate unbalanced gap between regions and urban/rural areas and not to eliminate any income gap between individuals. No concrete legislation has been passed on this policy directive.