Hot discussion at Tsinghua PBCSF Global Financial Forum——
Financial afterburner serves high-quality economic development
Our reporter Zhu Huichun Peng Jiang
Since 2022, the global epidemic, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and global inflation have combined to form a complex and severe external environment. What risks and challenges does my country's financial system face?
How can finance increase its efforts to serve the high-quality development of China's economy?
The 2022 Tsinghua PBCSF Global Financial Forum was held in Beijing recently.
The theme of this forum is "Stability and long-term development, financial support for high-quality development", and the guests discussed hot topics of concern in the financial market.
Increase the ability to serve the real economy
The Central Economic Work Conference pointed out that my country's economic development is facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock and weakening expectations.
Judging from the macroeconomic operation in the first quarter of this year, this trend is still continuing. At the same time, there are some new situations and changes that need attention in the epidemic and economic growth.
Liao Min, deputy director of the Central Finance Office and deputy minister of the Ministry of Finance, said that various measures are currently being advanced in accordance with the requirements of early efforts and precise policy implementation, and more policy combinations are also being studied and reserved.
At present, we must focus on reducing and avoiding the introduction of policies and measures with obvious shrinking effects, follow economic laws, adopt more online rectification and online reply methods, and make greater efforts to protect market entities, ensure employment, and protect people's livelihood.
Liao Min said that every economic transformation requires the promotion of the financial industry.
The technological innovation and high-quality development of the Chinese economy calls for the reform and innovation of the financial system. It is suggested that the financial industry should focus on three aspects: continuously help the Chinese economy realize a virtuous circle between technology, industry and capital through financial innovation and standardized operation; Market players can use both domestic and international markets at a higher level and more safely, give play to their comparative competitive advantages, and better integrate into the global economy in accordance with international rules; adapt to the profound transformation of the Chinese economy from investment and export-driven to consumption and technology-driven, provide corresponding to optimize the financing structure, reduce financing costs, and improve the efficiency of resource allocation.
At the same time, the financial industry itself must always prevent and control risks, constantly improve the modern enterprise system and corporate governance, and enhance the professional ethics and professionalism of employees.
Zhang Xiaohui, Dean of the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, believes that at a time when the new crown pneumonia epidemic is spreading and the economic situation at home and abroad is becoming more and more complicated, adhere to the "self-centered" macro policy, strengthen policy determination, and maximize expectations. Stable, healthy and high-quality development is particularly important.
my country must not only be prepared to deal with imported inflation, but also always be alert to the risks of secondary sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction imposed by the United States on my country's economic and financial institutions.
"It can be concluded from historical experience that the essence of micro-decision-making in contemporary economic operation is expectation." Lu Lei, deputy director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said that policy reform should be based on expectation management.
The "soft power" of macroeconomic management, such as forward guidance and market communication centered on expectation management, is an important indicator of financial modernization.
In the current high-level open environment, in the face of the complex and changeable economic and financial situation, in order to prevent cross-border infection, it is especially necessary to build a scientific macro-guidance + sensitive micro-response "two-in-one" economic and financial management with expectation management as the core system, thus forming the Chinese wisdom and Chinese plan of contemporary economic and financial management.
In the financial market, it is necessary to improve competitiveness and the ability to absorb risks.
Further expand the opening of the financial market to the outside world, and enhance the endogenous driving force for the optimization and upgrading of the financial market through reform and opening up; effectively play the role of finance as a risk "market maker" in the macro economy, play the role of the financial market as a reservoir, and effectively hedge, absorb and Transform the risks and contradictions accumulated in the economic operation, and create a favorable financial environment for "six stability" and "six guarantees".
In terms of financial management, the first is to speed up the implementation of the Financial Stability Law, and the second is to speed up the establishment of a financial stability guarantee fund in line with my country's national conditions.
Helping the digital economy become a new engine of growth
Michael Spencer, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, said that the future is an aging global economy, and growth will depend on the development of productivity.
The best opportunity right now will be digital transformation.
There is currently a dramatic increase in global entrepreneurial activity, especially in the digital space.
China is an extremely important and prominent part of it.
According to Michael Spencer, China's growth rate has been impressive for a long time.
Once digital technology is widely used, it has the potential to generate another kind of productivity growth.
China has excelled in building, deploying, adapting and adopting these technologies.
The digital economy is becoming a key force for reorganizing global factor resources, reshaping the global economic structure, and changing the global competition pattern.
This puts forward new requirements for financial development and brings new opportunities.
Liu Liange, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the Bank of China, believes that the wave of digital economy is reconstructing the underlying logic of economic and financial development, and the digital economy requires more accurate and efficient financial support.
Industrial digitization is the top priority of the future development of the digital economy. It is necessary to promote the forward movement of funds and services, and to promote the deep integration of the industrial chain, capital chain and value chain.
The consumption scene of Chinese residents has been highly digitized. Finance must grasp the new changes in residents' consumption behavior and meet the financial needs of customers at any time, anywhere, and on demand.
In addition, the digital economy requires the financial industry to accelerate the pace of digital transformation, which also breeds new risks and brings new challenges.
To this end, Liu Liange suggested that commercial banks should speed up their digital transformation and build a future-oriented digital bank.
Establish a new "customer-centric" digital transformation mindset. Driven by the "customer-centric" concept, business empowerment and process reengineering will be achieved by strengthening data analysis. Banks should move from closed to open, and embed financial services into education. , medical, commercial, government affairs and other scenarios, to achieve cross-border services, sharing and win-win.
In addition, it is necessary to create a new model for the development of digital inclusive finance, improve the intelligent risk control system, and build an online integrated risk control system including pre-loan, mid-loan, and post-loan, etc., to achieve automatic customer acquisition and batch processing.
Closely fit the business circle and life circle of small and micro enterprises and individual merchants, and improve the directness of business.
Digital currency is also a hot topic on the forum.
Some opinions suggest whether the People's Bank of China should speed up the issuance and issue more digital currencies, especially cross-border digital currencies.
In this regard, Zhou Xiaochuan, chairman of the China Society for Finance and Banking and former governor of the People's Bank of China, said that this is related to the current geopolitical problems. People hope that digital currency can also play a certain role in this regard, but how much money can be printed can be It's up to you to decide, however it's up to the application to get out of circulation.
Digital currency should pay attention to its real application.
my country's digital currency is designed for retail, for the convenience of the people and the convenience of merchants, not to replace the US dollar.
REITs are real estate market 'stabilizers'
The "14th Five-Year Plan" clearly states that we will promote the healthy development of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure sector, effectively revitalize existing assets, and form a virtuous cycle of existing assets and new investments.
Since the official listing and trading of related infrastructure REITs, the market has been operating steadily and achieved remarkable results, which have been widely recognized by the market, and the demonstration effect of the pilot projects has been good.
Deng Yongheng, a professor at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that the experience of rapid development of REITs in the international market shows that REITs are of great benefit to the establishment of a sustainable and stable real estate market.
"Currently China urgently needs a long-term sustainable housing market." Deng Yongheng said, "In order to achieve this purpose, there must be a solid market, such as the REITs market."
Xiao Gang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggested that REITs should be regarded as an independent type of securities products according to the securities law, special regulations should be formulated, the nature and positioning of REITs should be established, and a complete set of issuance, listing, trading, information disclosure and investors adapted to the characteristics of REITs should be constructed. protection and other institutional norms.
At present, the "public fund + ABS" model is adopted, which is a feasible solution in line with laws and regulations, which is conducive to the early start of the pilot program and promotes market development.
However, the problem is that there are too many levels in the product structure, the legal relationship is more complicated, the cost of operation and supervision increases, and the definition and coordination of the responsibilities of market players are more difficult.
It is necessary to make new institutional arrangements, optimize product design, further clarify the responsibilities of all parties involved in the market, reduce product creation and operating costs, and promote the sustainable and healthy development of the REITs market.
Recently, infrastructure REITs expanded their capacity for the first time, including affordable housing in the REITs pilot scope.
Zhang Yu, Managing Director of CICC Research and Head of Greater China Real Estate Research, believes that China has taken a different approach from overseas markets, that is, starting with infrastructure.
Shopping malls, office buildings, hotels, long-term rental apartments, rental apartments, etc. These are all important asset levels for REITs.
International experience shows that when most countries launch REITs or further innovate the existing REITs mechanism, they are linked to the risks of the local real estate market and even the associated risks of the financial system.
Resolving risks in the real estate industry through REITs has achieved a relatively obvious effect.
This experience can be used for China to resolve risks in the real estate industry.