Shanghai had posted great achievements in building its financial markets over the past decade and has become a national financial center, Chen told journalists at the 35th annual meeting of the board of governors of the Asian Development Bank.

"Our next goal is to optimize our environment for financial investment and strive to build the city into an international financial center, a dream for myself and all my predecessors," he said.

Shanghai to build up a credit system

To achieve that goal, the city would actively build up a credit system and create a sound social credit environment to foster financial development.

"As a matter of fact, we have already set up individual and corporate credit information systems," the mayor said.

The city established a corporate credit registration and consulting system in 1999, which contained such information as brief introductions of debtors and their financial and credit records.

In July 2000, an individual credit information network was opened to keep credit records of individuals.

"All we have to do is to keep improving these systems in line with internationally accepted practices and Shanghai's specific situation," said Chen.

Upgrade the financial sector with high technologies

In the meantime, the city would continue to back the financial sector with high technologies, in such areas as capital transfer, information flow and the establishment of the credit system, Chen told reporters.

The mayor expressed his hope to keep fostering the financial markets through government services, such as the accession of foreign investment, in an effort to improve services and efficiency of state-owned commercial banks through competition with their foreign counterparts.

Shanghai will also assist China's three major financial supervisory authorities, namely the People's Bank of China (PBC), China Securities Regulatory Commission and China Insurance Regulatory Commission, in supervising business operations of banks, insurance and security corporations and minimizing risks, he said.

As one of the first cities on the Chinese mainland to open the financial markets, Shanghai now boasts of the largest number of financial institutions in China.

Figures provided by PBC's Shanghai Branch show that by the end of March, Shanghai's Chinese-funded financial institutions had reported over 960 billion yuan (US$116 billion) in Renminbi deposits and 760 billion yuan (US$92 billion) in Renminbi loans outstanding.

Meanwhile, the 50-odd foreign-funded financial institutions in Shanghai had reported some US$24 billion of assets.

( May 13, 2002)