Experts laud move on financial sector

China's decision to set up a central financial commission underscores policymakers' emphasis on addressing financial safety issues and strengthening financial risk prevention, which will promote the healthy and steady development of the financial sector in the long run, analysts said on Friday.

They said the plan marked the country's latest push for strengthening and refining financial supervision, which will help prevent and defuse major financial risks and better support the healthy development of the real economy.

The plan, jointly issued by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council on Thursday, said China will establish a central financial commission to strengthen the Party's centralized and unified leadership in financial supervision and management.

The new commission will be responsible for top-level planning, coordination, overall advancement of financial stability and development and for supervising the work's implementation. The commission will also study and deliberate major policies and matters in the financial sector, among others.

The previous financial stability and development committee under the State Council and its working bodies will not be retained and its responsibilities will be taken over by the office of the new commission, said the plan for the reform of Party and State institutions.

Alongside the office of the commission, a central financial work committee will be set up to strengthen the unified leadership over the Party's work in the financial sector, according to the plan.

Dong Dengxin, director of the Wuhan University of Science and Technology's Finance and Securities Institute, said the central financial commission, together with the newly established national financial regulatory administration, will ensure a more orderly and reasonable division of responsibilities in terms of financial supervision.

"The central financial commission will assume its responsibilities to ensure the top-level design and overall planning, with financial safety among the top priorities of national security, while the national financial regulatory administration will focus more on day-to-day administration and supervision of China's financial sector," he said.

Citing the plan, he said the new move will further promote the healthy and long-term development of the financial sector, better support the development of the real economy and foster China's high-quality development.

Dong's views were echoed by Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Central University of Finance and Economics' Institute of Securities and Futures, who said the establishment of the new central financial commission marks a key move to strengthen the Party's leadership in financial supervision and management.

Lou Feipeng, a senior economist at Postal Savings Bank of China, said, "The establishment of the new central financial commission will help bolster financial supervision coordination and remove the regulatory vacuum as well as foster high-quality development of the financial sector to better serve economic and social development."