Xinhua Finance: Jiangbeizui Summit Overview: New Finance Empowering High-quality Development and Building Western Financial Center with Strong Momentum

CHONGQING,China,Aug. 3,2022 --On July 27,the 2022 Jiangbeizui New Finance Summit came to a successful conclusion in Chongqing. Invited experts contributed their expertise in the building of regional financial center from a macro perspective. With insightful suggestions,such as achieving the goal of carbon dioxide peak emissions and carbon neutrality by the development and innovation of digital economy and green finance,they proposed ideas for building western financial center from different points of view and promoting the high-quality development of the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin-Hub Mega-Region.

Cai Fang

Building Regional Financial Center with New Development Philosophy

Cai Fang,member of the 13thNPC Standing Committee,vice-chairperson of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the NPC,chief expert of the China Think Tank of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,and member of the Monetary Policy Commission of the People's Bank of China,pointed out that building regional financial center should combine financial center and long-term economic development. The first step is to put in practice the new development philosophy to catch up. In addition,it should give full play to city's advantages of major development strategies,and make full use of its large economic scale,including aggregation effect,advantages of supporting facility and convenient transportation,which are all available in Chongqing.

Li Daokui,member of the Standing Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and member of its Economic Affairs Committee,academic advisor of the China Society of World Economics,dean of the Institute for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking of Tsinghua University and president of the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics,said that it is necessary to stimulate the potential of steady economic growth. At present,the national unified market is optimizing,and the restructuring of population and economy will boost economic growth; our per capita income is still rising; we have high capacity for technological catch-up,and rich talent pool is expected to play a role in R&D and economic development.

Digital Economy Empowering High-quality Development

Jiang Xiaojuan,member of the 13th NPC Standing Committee,vice-chairperson of the Social Development Affairs Committee of the NPC and president of the Chinese Public Administration Society,pointed out that the three most important aspects of the digital economy empowering high-quality development lie in improving efficiency,overall empowerment and growing new dynamics. The digital economy will become a crucial part of economy and major growth friver,mainly because digital technology can improve the efficiency of service industry and empower the whole industry chain. Then,the digitization of whole industry chain will lead to data inclusion,digital twin and superimposed effect,which will in turn improve the efficiency of economic activities across society and provide new growth dynamics.

Christopher A. Pissarides,winner of the 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and professor of the Department of Economics of the London School of Economics and Political Science,pointed out that the digital development of Chongqing has created a good start for the integration of eastern and western regions,and that subsequent development also requires equally strong support. Digitalization is a development trend of the economy and international trade. The investment in digital technology and highly qualified personnel will promote the development of trading services.

Opportunities and Challenges on the Journey to Carbon Neutrality

Promoting the realization of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality and advancing the green and high-quality development,are also the urgent need to solve the salient problems of resource and environmental restriction and achieve sustainable development for China.

He Kebin,academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and dean of the Institute for Carbon Neutrality of Tsinghua University,pointed out that carbon neutrality will give rise to a new energy system in the future. In the process of new industrial reconstruction,we also face lots of challenges,such as the innovation of key and core technology,the construction of supply chain of new energy industry,and the collaborative governance and integrated decision of climate and environment. In order to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality and emission reduction,it is recommended to adopt five measures together,namely,increasing the efficiency of resource and reducing carbon emission to realize the material recycling and build circulation economy system; reducing carbon content in the energy structure; increasing carbon storage in geological space; increasing the carbon sink capacity of carbon dioxide through ecosystems; and widely implementing carbon trading market by market mechanism.

Ma Jun,chairman of the Green Finance Committee of China Society for Finance and Banking and dean of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability,says the Roadmap for A Sustainable Finance of G20 will become a programmatic document to guide the future work of global international organization on sustainable finance. At present,five elements of this framework are now largely in place,including explicit requirement for transformation activities,disclosure requirement,financial instrument to support transformation activities and transformation incentives,emphasizing that the transformation should be fair and equitable. This predicts that many countries will subsequently introduce their own standards and policies for finance transformation in the future. China is also currently working on the relevant catalogues and policies of transformation.

It is recommended that Chongqing should move forward with the establishment of finance transformation framework. Under the framework of finance transformation,the local government should start to establish the catalogue of finance transformation to help and accelerate high-carbon company and industry to achieve their goal of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality more smoothly.