Shanghai lawmakers said yesterday they are looking into introducing more detailed rules to speed up the city's rise as an international financial hub.

City level guidelines to create a global financial hub will take effect from August 1, including the establishment of a fund to boost the financial industry.

The guidelines were passed by the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on June 25, but more practical rules are being studied to make them easy to implement.

Wu Hong, a local lawmaker and a professor at East China University of Political Science and Law, said detailed implementation rules on Shanghai's financial development fund will be launched first, but he declined to provide a timetable. The fund is designed to attract top-level talent to the city and spur innovation.

Shanghai received the State Council approval to try innovative approaches on a trial basis to build the city into a major financial and shipping hub by 2020.

Shanghai is already China's financial hub, home to the Chinese mainland's larger stock market, its major futures market for metals and energy, its gold bourse and the foreign exchange center.

(Shanghai Daily July 10, 2009)