Lujiazui Forum to focus on continued opening up

Continued opening-up and collaboration in the financial sector will be a focus of the 2025 Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai on June 18-19, a press briefing was told on Friday.

The annual event has become a high-profile gathering of policymakers, financial experts and business leaders from around the world since 2008, contributing wisdom to accelerating Shanghai's development as an international financial center.

Lujiazui in the Pudong New Area is often compared to Wall Street in New York as it is home to China's largest number of financial markets, including the Shanghai Stock Exchange, banks, securities firms and insurance companies.

With the theme of "Financial Opening-up, Cooperation and High-Quality Development in a Changing Global Economy," this year's forum will see more than 70 Chinese and foreign experts attend and deliver speeches, along with international financial organizations, institutions, and governmental departments, including those from the UK Financial Conduct Authority, Central Bank of Hungary, Monetary Authority of Singapore and Deutsche Borse Group.

Pan Gongsheng, governor of China's central bank, and Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng will co-chair this year's forum.

"Financial opening-up is a critical component of China's overall opening-up strategy," said Zhou Xiaoquan, executive deputy director of Shanghai's financial affairs office under the CPC Shanghai Committee.

"Achieving a high-level of financial openness is an inherent requirement for realizing high-quality development. The world economy faces multiple risks and challenges nowadays. It is essential to focus on advancing high-level financial opening-up, improving China's efficiency and capacity in financial resource allocation, and enhancing its international competitiveness and influence on rules to cope with the changes that are unseen in a century," Zhou said.

The forum will have eight themed seminars covering topics such as "enhancing coordination of global monetary policies," "promoting sustained development of capital markets," "AI-empowered financial reform and innovation" and "improving policy, standards and product system for green finance."

Meanwhile, there will be three sideline events to cover high-quality development of the reinsurance market, international financial laws and rules, and how the financial sector can facilitate other strategic industries.