China's securities regulator pledges further capital market opening-up

China will push its capital market to open wider to the world, shifting from being partially open to full-scale and institutional opening-up, an official with the country's top securities regulator said on Oct 24.

Fang Xinghai, vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, made the remarks in a speech at the second Bund Summit in Shanghai.

While adhering to the direction of market-oriented, law-based and internationalized development, China will steadily ease cross-border investment and financing restrictions, pay more attention to deeper institution and rule alignment, and continue to enhance the predictability and stability of policies, he said.

Opening-up and cooperation has always been the principle and direction of China's capital market since its establishment 30 years ago, according to Fang, who noted that foreign institutional investors are gaining a significantly larger share in the A-share market in recent years.

"This has fully reflected global investors' recognition of the prospects of the A-share market and China's economic development, and played a positive role in effectively dealing with the epidemic's impact and maintaining the market stable," he told the summit.

Fang pledged further opening-up of both the capital market and products, as well as efforts to continue improving the level of openness for the industries of securities, funds and futures.

Fang also stressed the need to boost international regulatory cooperation. China will work more closely with overseas regulators and international financial organizations and crack down on financial fraud in cross-border listings and securities issuance, he said.

Meanwhile, China will strengthen supervision amid higher-level opening-up by improving cross-border capital flow monitoring and advancing cross-border regulatory cooperation and law enforcement mechanisms in terms of data reporting and investor protection, according to Fang.