Photo: Courtesy of Financial Street Forum

The 2023 Financial Street Forum annual conference which ran from Wednesday to Friday in Beijing served to boost confidence and convey the determination for financial openness and cooperation, attendees said at the closing ceremony of the forum on Friday, emphasizing the importance of strengthening financial openness and cooperation to promote mutually beneficial economic outcomes.

It has been shown that strengthening international cooperation, particularly in trade, is a key factor for sustained growth of large economies. It is believed that as long as all parties focus on long-term cooperation, mutual prosperity can be achieved, said David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group.

It is necessary to further promote multilateral cooperation in the global financial market, maintain stability, sufficient capital, and liquidity to meet the needs of the real economy. It is important to establish a more robust global governance mechanism to address various challenges. The role of capital should be fully utilized to create more jobs and employment opportunities to revive the global post-pandemic economy, Manuela Ferro, Vice President for East Asia and Pacific at the World Bank, stated in a video speech.

Li Daokui, director of the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking at Tsinghua University, said that in order to accelerate efforts to build China into a strong financial power, the country can expand and strengthen the national bond market.

There remains significant room for improvement in terms of the ratio of national bonds to GDP and the share of national debts held by foreign institutions. Expanding and strengthening the national bond market will help establish a long-term mechanism for preventing and resolving local government debt risks, according to Li Daokui.

The Central Financial Work Conference has set the goal of building China into a financial power. By comparing the "hard power" and "soft power" of world financial powers, China has developed rapidly in terms of financial institutions and the scale of financial markets in recent years, said Li Yang, Chairman of the National Institution for Finance and Development.

In terms of total wealth, the Chinese government has greater capacity, space, and resilience to cope with various shocks. With the deepening cooperation of the Belt and Road Initiative, China's influence in the international financial system is increasing, Li Yang noted.

Global Times