G○ VERNOR'S ADDRESS The year 2013 was the first year for the implementation of the spirit of the 18 CPC Na tional Congress and a pivotal year for accelerating the transformation of the pattern of eco nomic development. Faced with complicated and challenging domestic and external economic and financial environment, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and following the principle of making progress while maintaining stability, the People's Bank of China(PBC)strengthened and improved macroeconomic management, accelerated financial reform, opening-up and development and attached great importance to maintaining financial stability, creating a favorable monetary and financial environment for the sustained and sound development of the national economy. Strengthening and improving macroeconomic management Macroeconomic management faced significant challenges in 2013. In particular, during the first half of the year, domestic economy faced greater downward pressures with more enterpris es experiencing difficulties in business, and the money market fluctuated, posing tremendous pressures on the PBC to ease monetary policy. Confronted with the complicated situation, the PBC upheld the macroeconomic management orientation of"maintaining aggregates at stable levels and improving the structure, continued the prudent monetary policy, strengthened macro-prudential management, and innovated management strategies and methods. The PBC remained sober-minded, maintained a focus on policy measures, neither loosening nor tight ening monetary policy, and when necessary conducted preemptive adjustment and fine-tuning with appropriate strength. The PBC conducted flexible open market operations in both direc tions, and created the instruments of Short-term Liquidity Operations and Standing Lending Facility, maintained a reasonable and abundant level of liquidity in the banking system and promoted overall stability in the money market. It also guided financial institutions to use new credit well and revitalize existing assets to promote reasonable and appropriate growth of gregate financing to the real M2 by13.6 percent, RMB-denominated loans increase by 8.89 trillion yuan, and aggregate financing to
The year 2013 was the first year for the implementation of the spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress and a pivotal year for accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development. Faced with complicated and challenging domestic and external economic and financial environment, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and following the principle of making progress while maintaining stability, the People’s Bank of China (PBC) strengthened and improved macroeconomic management, accelerated financial reform, opening-up and development and attached great importance to maintaining financial stability, creating a favorable monetary and financial environment for the sustained and sound development of the national economy. Strengthening and improving macroeconomic management Macroeconomic management faced significant challenges in 2013. In particular, during the first half of the year, domestic economy faced greater downward pressures with more enterprises experiencing difficulties in business, and the money market fluctuated, posing tremendous pressures on the PBC to ease monetary policy. Confronted with the complicated situation, the PBC upheld the macroeconomic management orientation of “maintaining aggregates at stable levels and improving the structure,” continued the prudent monetary policy, strengthened macro-prudential management, and innovated management strategies and methods. The PBC remained sober-minded, maintained a focus on policy measures, neither loosening nor tightening monetary policy, and when necessary conducted preemptive adjustment and fine-tuning with appropriate strength. The PBC conducted flexible open market operations in both directions, and created the instruments of Short-term Liquidity Operations and Standing Lending Facility, maintained a reasonable and abundant level of liquidity in the banking system and promoted overall stability in the money market. It also guided financial institutions to use new credit well and revitalize existing assets to promote reasonable and appropriate growth of money, credit and aggregate financing to the real economy. The year 2013 saw M2 grow by 13.6 percent, RMB-denominated loans increase by 8.89 trillion yuan, and aggregate financing to GOVERNOR’S ADDRESS
the real economy reach 17. 29 trillion yuan. The trend of relatively fast growth of money, credit and aggregate financing to the real economy during the first few months of year was effectively controlled. In 2013, CPI rose by 2.6 percent; international balance of payments kept moving toward equilibrium; and, the macroeconomic management targets set at the beginning of the year were achieved Promoting financial reform and development and maintaining financial stabilit The PbC has always been attaching great importance to financial reform and development and financial stability. It promoted financial reform in order to let the market play a decisive role in allocating resources, while taking the avoidance of systemic financial risks as the bottom line of its financial work. In advancing the market-based interest rate reform further in 2013 the PBC fully liberalized lending rates, established and improved self-regulatory mechanism of market interest rate pricing, launched the centralized quote and releasing mechanism of Loan Prime Rate, and successfully issued the first batch of 34 billion yuan of interbank certificate of deposits. RMB exchange rate experienced slight appreciation, showing the feature of two way floating and greater flexibility, and moving further toward a reasonable and equilibrium level. The PBC led the establishment of Joint Ministerial Conference Mechanism on Financial Regulatory Coordination, coordinated studies and implementation of important policy issues including financial information sharing, comprehensive and integrated financial statistics, the normalized development of internet finance, interbank businesses normalization, and the functional assignment of financial regulatory responsibilities between the central and local governments. The PBC released opinions with regard to financial support to the development of China(Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, in which a series of pilot policies regarding capi tal account convertibility, cross-border use of RMB, and etc. were specified. The PBC actively pushed forward regional financial reform pilot programs in areas such as Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province and Qianhai in Shenzhen, and added seven provinces to the list of the pilot program of the Rural Financial Business Division of Agricultural Bank of China(ABC). Efforts were made to prepare for the launch of the deposit insurance system. The PBC also comprehensively studied and estimated potential financial risks, strengthened risk monitoring of key areas such as local government financing platforms and cross-market financial products, enhanced regu latory cooperation on securities and futures, continued efforts in resolving risks of highly risky financial institutions, and explored the establishment of an early warning system for systemic financial risks. Chinas financial sector continued to perform stably and efficiently against the complicated and varying international environment, and played an important role in promot ing the development of the real economy and the transformation of economic growth pattern Promoting the cross-border use of RMB Adapting to changes in international financial markets and demand in trade and invest
the real economy reach 17.29 trillion yuan. The trend of relatively fast growth of money, credit and aggregate financing to the real economy during the first few months of year was effectively controlled. In 2013, CPI rose by 2.6 percent; international balance of payments kept moving toward equilibrium; and, the macroeconomic management targets set at the beginning of the year were achieved. Promoting financial reform and development and maintaining financial stability The PBC has always been attaching great importance to financial reform and development and financial stability. It promoted financial reform in order to let the market play a decisive role in allocating resources, while taking the avoidance of systemic financial risks as the bottom line of its financial work. In advancing the market-based interest rate reform further in 2013, the PBC fully liberalized lending rates, established and improved self-regulatory mechanism of market interest rate pricing, launched the centralized quote and releasing mechanism of Loan Prime Rate, and successfully issued the first batch of 34 billion yuan of interbank certificate of deposits. RMB exchange rate experienced slight appreciation, showing the feature of twoway floating and greater flexibility, and moving further toward a reasonable and equilibrium level. The PBC led the establishment of Joint Ministerial Conference Mechanism on Financial Regulatory Coordination, coordinated studies and implementation of important policy issues, including financial information sharing, comprehensive and integrated financial statistics, the normalized development of internet finance, interbank businesses normalization, and the functional assignment of financial regulatory responsibilities between the central and local governments. The PBC released opinions with regard to financial support to the development of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, in which a series of pilot policies regarding capital account convertibility, cross-border use of RMB, and etc. were specified. The PBC actively pushed forward regional financial reform pilot programs in areas such as Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province and Qianhai in Shenzhen, and added seven provinces to the list of the pilot program of the Rural Financial Business Division of Agricultural Bank of China (ABC). Efforts were made to prepare for the launch of the deposit insurance system. The PBC also comprehensively studied and estimated potential financial risks, strengthened risk monitoring of key areas such as local government financing platforms and cross-market financial products, enhanced regulatory cooperation on securities and futures, continued efforts in resolving risks of highly risky financial institutions, and explored the establishment of an early warning system for systemic financial risks. China’s financial sector continued to perform stably and efficiently against the complicated and varying international environment, and played an important role in promoting the development of the real economy and the transformation of economic growth pattern. Promoting the cross-border use of RMB Adapting to changes in international financial markets and demand in trade and invest-
ment,the PBC kept improving cross-border RMB business management in order to facilitate businesses of banks and enterprises. Efforts were made to promote overseas RMB lending and guarantees made by domestic non-financial institutions, allow foreign investors to use RMB to invest in domestic financial institutions, and compile RMB-denominated foreign trade statistics,which further expanded the cross-border use of RMB. In 2013, the total amount of cross-border RMB trade settlement grew by 57.6 percent year on year; the value of goods trade settled in RMB accounted for 11.7 percent of total value of export and import of goods at the Chinese Customs; and, foreign enterprises from 174 countries had cross-border RMB pay ments or receipts with domestic institutions. The PBC signed or renewed bilateral local cur rency swap agreements in the amount of 1, 155.5 billion yuan with eight foreign central banks including the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. RMB clearing arrangements in Chinas Taiwan Region and Singapore were established. The offshore RMB markets exper enced sound development Promoting the development and regulation of interbank bond market In recent years, sticking to the objective of cultivating the OTC market and to the market- orientation principle in developing the bond market, the PBC made great efforts in fostering institutional investors, strengthened market discipline, promoted market innovation, enhanced regulation and management, and strengthened bond market transparency and information disclosure standards. The above measures resulted in the sustainable, sound and rapid develo ment of the interbank bond market. During the year, the pilot program of credit asset securiti zation was further expanded, with six institutions including China Development Bank(CDB) issuing 15. 781 billion yuan of credit asset securitized products. The PBC promoted issuance of financial bonds by institutions such as insurance companies, which increased the variety and categories of market issuers. Innovative methods were studied with regard to bond OTC trad ing. CDB was encouraged to issue financial bonds on exchange markets. Foreign non-financial enterprises were promoted to issue debt financing instruments in China. Bond issuance pricing mechanism was improved and integrated management of transaction settlement was strength ened. Transaction information disclosure mechanism was improved, and Class C Accounts were sorted and regulated. In 2013, 9.0 trillion yuan of RMB bonds were issued in the bond market, of which 8.2 trillion yuan of bonds were issued in the interbank bond market, increas- ing 9.9 percent year on year Enhancing the modernization of financial services The PbC has always taken promoting the modernization of central bank financial services as the foundation work for improving financial services to the whole society and for letting the achievements of financial reform and development benefit the people. In 2013, the PBC
ment, the PBC kept improving cross-border RMB business management in order to facilitate businesses of banks and enterprises. Efforts were made to promote overseas RMB lending and guarantees made by domestic non-financial institutions, allow foreign investors to use RMB to invest in domestic financial institutions, and compile RMB-denominated foreign trade statistics, which further expanded the cross-border use of RMB. In 2013, the total amount of cross-border RMB trade settlement grew by 57.6 percent year on year; the value of goods trade settled in RMB accounted for 11.7 percent of total value of export and import of goods at the Chinese Customs; and, foreign enterprises from 174 countries had cross-border RMB payments or receipts with domestic institutions. The PBC signed or renewed bilateral local currency swap agreements in the amount of 1,155.5 billion yuan with eight foreign central banks including the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. RMB clearing arrangements in China’s Taiwan Region and Singapore were established. The offshore RMB markets experienced sound development. Promoting the development and regulation of interbank bond market In recent years, sticking to the objective of cultivating the OTC market and to the marketorientation principle in developing the bond market, the PBC made great efforts in fostering institutional investors, strengthened market discipline, promoted market innovation, enhanced regulation and management, and strengthened bond market transparency and information disclosure standards. The above measures resulted in the sustainable, sound and rapid development of the interbank bond market. During the year, the pilot program of credit asset securitization was further expanded, with six institutions including China Development Bank (CDB) issuing 15.781 billion yuan of credit asset securitized products. The PBC promoted issuance of financial bonds by institutions such as insurance companies, which increased the variety and categories of market issuers. Innovative methods were studied with regard to bond OTC trading. CDB was encouraged to issue financial bonds on exchange markets. Foreign non-financial enterprises were promoted to issue debt financing instruments in China. Bond issuance pricing mechanism was improved and integrated management of transaction settlement was strengthened. Transaction information disclosure mechanism was improved, and Class C Accounts were sorted and regulated. In 2013, 9.0 trillion yuan of RMB bonds were issued in the bond market, of which 8.2 trillion yuan of bonds were issued in the interbank bond market, increasing 9.9 percent year on year. Enhancing the modernization of financial services The PBC has always taken promoting the modernization of central bank financial services as the foundation work for improving financial services to the whole society and for letting the achievements of financial reform and development benefit the people. In 2013, the PBC
focused on pushing forward the revision of the Law of the People 's Republic of China on the Peoples Bank of China, the Provisional Regulations on Cash Management, and etc. Jointly with other related agencies, it launched regulatory measures to prevent risks from the use of Bitcoin. The standardized comprehensive survey statistics and monitoring system of deposits and loans was established, and categorizing method for financial enterprises was developed The PBC led and completed the first round of research projects on key issues in the financial sector as assigned by the State Council. The transformation of the accounting practices in the PBC was thoroughly implemented. The second generation payment system was successfully launched, and Accounting Data Centralized System(ACS)was put into pilot operation. The Financial Institution Code Certificates were issued; guidance on strategies for disaster backup of the banking industry was released; and, application standards for financial IC cards to carry public service functions were unified. The service of searching serial numbers of large-value cash in commercial banks was successfully promoted, and the milestone objective of sorting all the cash received by commercial banks was achieved. The State Treasury Centralized Book ing System(TCBS)was launched throughout the country. Pilot program concerning paperless processing of tax refund, correction and reimbursement transfer using the Treasury Informa tion Processing System(TIPS) was successfully carried out in Hainan and Fujian provinces The Administrative Measures for Credit Reference Agencies was formulated and released, and the pilot program of accessing individual credit report through internet achieved satisfying re sults in nine provinces(municipalities)including Beijing. Regulations on freezing assets relat ed to terrorism activities were formulated and comprehensive pilot programs of reporting large and suspicious transaction were carried out successfully. The working mechanism to protect financial consumer rights was basically established across the PBC branches and sub-branches, and the mechanism for accepting and processing consumer complaints was further improved Efforts in developing inclusive finance were steadily pushed forward. Deepening international exchange and cooperation Guided by the national strategic interests, the PBC has conducted international finan cial cooperation in a comprehensive, multi-layered, flexible and practical manner, and has strengthened Chinas voice and influence in international financial affairs. In 2013, through platforms such as the Group of Twenty(G20), the PBC actively participated in the global policy coordination and promoted strong, sustainable and balanced development of the global economy. It also promoted the development of Contingent Reserve Arrangement of the BRICS making the BRICS mechanism an important platform for China to participate in global gover- nance and crisis resolution jointly with other countries. Agreements such as doubling the total size of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation(CMIM) to US$240 billion was implemented; agreements on establishing co-financing funds with the Inter-American Development Bank
focused on pushing forward the revision of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the People’s Bank of China, the Provisional Regulations on Cash Management, and etc. Jointly with other related agencies, it launched regulatory measures to prevent risks from the use of Bitcoin. The standardized comprehensive survey statistics and monitoring system of deposits and loans was established, and categorizing method for financial enterprises was developed. The PBC led and completed the first round of research projects on key issues in the financial sector as assigned by the State Council. The transformation of the accounting practices in the PBC was thoroughly implemented. The second generation payment system was successfully launched, and Accounting Data Centralized System (ACS) was put into pilot operation. The Financial Institution Code Certificates were issued; guidance on strategies for disaster backup of the banking industry was released; and, application standards for financial IC cards to carry public service functions were unified. The service of searching serial numbers of large-value cash in commercial banks was successfully promoted, and the milestone objective of sorting all the cash received by commercial banks was achieved. The State Treasury Centralized Booking System (TCBS) was launched throughout the country. Pilot program concerning paperless processing of tax refund, correction and reimbursement transfer using the Treasury Information Processing System (TIPS) was successfully carried out in Hainan and Fujian provinces. The Administrative Measures for Credit Reference Agencies was formulated and released, and the pilot program of accessing individual credit report through internet achieved satisfying results in nine provinces (municipalities) including Beijing. Regulations on freezing assets related to terrorism activities were formulated and comprehensive pilot programs of reporting large and suspicious transaction were carried out successfully. The working mechanism to protect financial consumer rights was basically established across the PBC branches and sub-branches, and the mechanism for accepting and processing consumer complaints was further improved. Efforts in developing inclusive finance were steadily pushed forward. Deepening international exchange and cooperation Guided by the national strategic interests, the PBC has conducted international financial cooperation in a comprehensive, multi-layered, flexible and practical manner, and has strengthened China’s voice and influence in international financial affairs. In 2013, through platforms such as the Group of Twenty (G20), the PBC actively participated in the global policy coordination and promoted strong, sustainable and balanced development of the global economy. It also promoted the development of Contingent Reserve Arrangement of the BRICS, making the BRICS mechanism an important platform for China to participate in global governance and crisis resolution jointly with other countries. Agreements such as doubling the total size of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) to US$240 billion was implemented; agreements on establishing co-financing funds with the Inter-American Development Bank