By Wang Nian, Research Team on “The Structural Reform of Service Industry Driven by Institutional and Open-Oriented Development”, Institute of Market Economy, DRC

Research Report, No.121, 2021 (Total 6186) 2021-5-14

Abstract: In recent years, China’s financial industry has furthered opening up in a phased-in manner, with swift opening-up performance by a big margin in both banking and insurance businesses, showing the financial sector’s determination in further opening-up to the outside world. But by international standards, China’s banking and insurance sectors are not yet that open as those of developed countries or even some developing ones. Besides, China’s service trade is still plagued by many restrictions and lags behind the high level of opening-up in international community. As a result, the sense of gains on the part of foreign-invested financial institutions remains to be increased. To advance high-level opening-up and high-quality development of the financial industry in face of the harsh and complicated external environment, China needs to move faster to align its financial industry with international standards. The institutional arrangements for opening-up of financial industry need to be advanced by reducing restrictions on foreign investment access, remove hurdles on the way of market competition, strengthen cohesion with international rules and regulations, demand a bigger say in world affairs and focus more concern on warding off financial risks.

Keywords: financial industry, high-level opening-up, reform, OECD service trade restrictions index