Finance leaders gather on the Bund

The inaugural Bund Summit was held on Sunday, focusing on issues including financial opening up, fintech and wealth management.

The event invites senior policymakers, executives of financial institutions and academic leaders worldwide to the Bund to share their insights on economic and financial issues and provide intellectual support for the building of an open world economy.

"The global economy and finance are now in a new environment and facing new challenges. Against the backdrop of economic downturn, rising protectionism and turbulence in the financial ecosystem, it is even more necessary to communicate, seek consensus and jointly tackle the common challenges," said Tu Guangshao, executive chairman of Bund Summit Organizing Committee.

"Globalization is inexorable, and global financial cooperation needs to move forward," Tu said, noting that China's current opening-up provides an opportunity for global partners and boost its own development in the financial sector.

A recent study by Citigroup showed that global investors see China as a very huge market with great development potential, according to Stuart Staley, head of APAC Markets and Securities Services at Citigroup. 

The market is already very large now, but in terms of the growth potential, investors still give feedback as "high growth potential," as the shareholding ratio is relatively low at the moment, Staley said. 

Richard Cantor, chief credit officer of Moody’s Corporation as well as chief credit officer of Moody’s Investor Service Inc, pointed out that foreign ownership of Chinese bonds is at a relatively low level, but has maintained rapid growth. 

Foreign participation in China's bond market has continued to grow, and China's financial liberalization has been developing after Chinese President Xi Jinping and central bank governor Yi Gang announced a series of supportive policies in 2018. This has led to higher foreign involvement in China's financial market, Cantor said.

The regulations and the participation of Chinese financial institutions, combined with the financial infrastructure and the stock connect schemes linking the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, have all proved that China will continue to carry out financial opening-up, he said.

The summit was launched by the China Finance 40 Forum (CF40) and Huangpu District government along with partner institutions, aiming to advance the opening of the financial sector, speed up the process of developing Shanghai into an international financial center, and promote the integration and cooperation between China and the rest of the world.

The organizing committee of the summit is chaired by Chen Yuan, vice chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of CF40 Executive Council. The executive chairman of the committee is Tu Guangshao, chairman of the Executive Council of Shanghai Finance Institute.