China, Italy agree to enhance financial market cooperation, opening-up

BEIJING -- China and Italy have agreed to enhance financial market cooperation and promote two-way financial market access.

Both sides welcome each other's financial institutions to enter one another's securities, insurance, wealth management including custody services and futures markets in line with the regulatory framework currently or prospectively in force, according to a joint declaration released after the First China-Italy Finance Dialogue.

Attended by Chinese finance minister Liu Kun and his Italian counterpart Giovanni Tria, the dialogue was held in Milan on Wednesday.

The first Panda Bond is also welcome to be issued by a qualified Italian financial institution, the statement said.

The two parties said they would be committed to promoting a stable, fair, non-discriminatory and transparent business environment as well as a level playing field to enable the continued growth of bilateral trade and investment.

Cooperation on financial regulation over banking, securities and insurance sectors, as well as cross-border audit will be deepened.

The possibility of setting up joint investment funds and other innovative financing instruments based on continued dialogue will be further explored, according to the statement.

Efforts will also be made to identify possible synergies between the Belt and Road Initiative and the EU Strategy on Connecting Europe and Asia and explore opportunities to deepen pragmatic project cooperation.

Support will be offered for setting up a cooperation mechanism between their export credit agencies, leading enterprises and financial institutions of the two countries to provide tailored financing-insurance solutions for cooperation in the third market.

Both sides look forward to the second China-Italy Finance Dialogue in China, according to the statement.