The People's Bank of China is actively working towards the listing of joint-stock commercial banks, while allowing wholly state-owned banks with good conditions to be transformed into joint-stock ones for listing some time later, the central bank's governor, Dai Xianglong, said in Hong Kong Wednesday.
Speaking at a seminar on the global capital market, organized by the Fortune Global Forum, Dai said that China's central bank supports commercial banks in helping the restructuring of state- owned enterprises with credit as leverage, and actively works towards the listing of joint-stock commercial banks.
Dai said that the central bank had cut the interest rates seven times in recent years, which was of great help to curb deflation and prompted the people to put their money into the stock market, thus spurring the development of China's capital market. The central bank also allows securities companies and fund management firms to raise money on the securities market, and is considering securitizing housing loans, he added.
The central bank governor said that China is to develop a capital market as open as those in foreign countries, and is striving for turning China's Renminbi into a freely convertible currency.
(Xinhua 05/09/2001)
