A view of the Lujiazui area in Shanghai, China. Photo: VCG

The 2024 Lujiazui Forum serves as a significant indicator of China's deepening capital market reform, demonstrating the firm commitment of China's financial sector to advancing high-quality development. 

Financial regulators, including the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the People's Bank of China (PBC) and the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), announced fresh policy measures and reform plans for China's capital market at the 2024 Lujiazui Forum held in Shanghai on Wednesday.

Specifically, Wu Qing, head of the CSRC, announced eight new reform measures for China's Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR) market. 

Covering a number of aspects, including improving the IPO auditing process, optimizing trading rules and strengthening information disclosure requirements, the eight new reforms reflect China's firm support for scientific and technological innovation and the development of new quality productive forces. 

The move indicates that the capital market will continue to deepen its function of serving the scientific and technological innovation.

Since the Central Financial Work Conference held in December called for accelerating the building of a nation with a strong financial sector, which elevates the importance of financial work to a higher strategic level, China's financial regulators have sent strong signals on building the nation into a financial powerhouse. The eight new measures introduced at the Lujiazui Forum are also in line with this new policy direction.

The direction of China's financial reform is the need to back up the high-quality development of the real economy, and the key lies in more efficient distribution of all financial resources. The eight new reform measures clearly reflect the efforts of the policymakers.

Since its launch, China's STAR market has been positioned to serve scientific and technological innovation by providing Chinese enterprises with more convenient and efficient financing channels. 

In this context, the introduction of the eight new measures reflects the overall direction of China's capital market reform. 

With the improvement of China's economic structure, there is a growing need for the capital market, as an important platform for financial resource allocation, to keep pace with economic development needs by improving its services and efficiency. 

Against this backdrop, relevant reforms will undoubtedly be rolled out in the direction of deepening the function of serving technological innovation in China.

To put it in perspective, the new reform plans will accelerate the development of the country's capital market, which is of great significance to the nation's future competitiveness and sustained economic growth. Therefore, the success of the STAR market is of great importance to innovation.

Capital market reform is a long-term and complex process, requiring the joint efforts of all parties. Some types of financial innovation may cause uncertainties and unexpected side-effects, but there is no fixed pattern or projection for this issue. This raises higher professional bar and risk management requirement for regulators, market participants and investors too. 

Generally speaking, the key underlining successful innovation and reforms is based on upholding the fundamental principle of respecting facts and truth, and abiding by the laws of the market.

It is hoped that a new wave of capital market reform can bring positive changes to the financing market in terms of offering more support to high-tech companies and creating a fair and transparent trading environment for investors, contributing to the high-quality development of the Chinese economy.

The article was compiled based on an interview with Zhu Keli, founding director of the China Institute of New Economy. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn