China will continue to link its financial system to the rest of the world. That’s the message Lei Lu, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China ( PBoC ), to financial professionals from various parts of the world gathered at Sibos 2024 in Beijing.

“China’s financial sector has and will continue to embrace opening up and cooperation. Past experience of China’s financial market development has shown that opening up is an important driver for high-quality development of the financial sector,” explains Lu. “The PBoC will continue to promote high-quality opening up of the financial sector.”

During his speech at the annual conference, held for the first time in mainland China, Lu highlighted the country’s achievements in making the world’s second largest economy increasingly accessible to foreign entities. These included the establishment of various Connect schemes, including Stock Connect and Bond Connect. This has resulted in China becoming the world’s second largest bond market, with foreign investors holding nearly 4.6 trillion yuan ( US$645.96 billlion ) in Chinese bonds, according to the PBoC.

“We will continue to provide an enabling environment for foreign financial investors to enter and operate in China, improving operations of financial markets in line with best practices and also expanding connectivity between domestic and overseas markets,” shares Lu.

Lu also mentioned reforms in China’s financial system, including enhancing the clearing and settlement mechanism for the renminbi and increasing linkages between the domestic payment network and overseas infrastructures.

“Going forward, the PBoC will continue to promote the healthy development of cross-border payment under the principles of openness, cooperation and mutual benefit, continue to improve the mass payment infrastructure by enhancing resilience and efficiency, and improve cross-border payment by promoting the interlinking of QR codes and supporting cross-border use of foreign bank cards and e-wallets,” says Lu.

Amid these achievements, Lu stresses that the increasing interconnectivity of financial networks shouldn’t lead to higher risks, noting that the central bank will continue to implement robust standards to counter illegal activities such as money laundering, improve compliance, strictly implement national standards for anti-money laundering, and intensify efforts to crack down on illegal activities related to money laundering or terrorist financing.

Nearly 10,000 participants from around the world have gathered at the annual event organized by the global interbank payment system Swift.