作者：高惺惟（中央党校〔国家行政学院〕习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心研究员）
日前召开的中央金融工作会议指出，“金融是国民经济的血脉，是国家核心竞争力的重要组成部分，要加快建设金融强国”。我国金融正处在由“大”到“强”的关键时期，机遇与挑战并存。建设金融强国，必须坚持和加强党的全面领导，坚定不移走中国特色金融发展之路，推动我国金融高质量发展。
1.金融是国民经济的血脉和国家核心竞争力的重要组成部分
习近平总书记指出：“金融活，经济活；金融稳，经济稳。经济兴，金融兴；经济强，金融强。经济是肌体，金融是血脉，两者共生共荣。”党的二十大报告指出，“高质量发展是全面建设社会主义现代化国家的首要任务。发展是党执政兴国的第一要务”。金融是现代经济的核心，能够通过发挥配置资源的功能助推一国生产力发展、经济腾飞、科技创新和产业升级，是国家重要的核心竞争力。加快建设金融强国，是我国经济社会发展的需要，也是我国经济长远发展的战略抉择，更是在金融全球化进程中维护国家金融安全的需要，事关国家繁荣富强、社会和谐稳定、人民幸福安康。全面建成社会主义现代化强国需要建设一个金融强国。
Finance is the blood that nourishes the body of the economy, and it is a symbiotic relationship with the real economy. The development of finance depends on the real economy, and the development of the real economy needs the empowerment of financial services. Specifically, financial institutions can provide necessary financial support for the real economy, thus promoting the development of the real economy. Finance can enlarge the production capacity and market space of start-ups and prolong the energy storage time of new technologies. By building a modern financial institution and market system, diversified financial services can guide more resources into new fields and new tracks, which is conducive to the accumulation of new kinetic energy in the real economy. All work in the financial sector actively serves the implementation of major national strategies, and can continuously inject "flowing water" into the implementation of relevant strategies by optimizing the allocation of financial resources in rural revitalization, scientific and technological innovation, small and micro enterprises, green development and other fields, adding new vitality to the high-quality development of the economy and society. Finance is an important tool to stabilize macroeconomic operation. By strengthening policy implementation and work promotion and maintaining reasonable and abundant liquidity, the cost of social financing can be effectively reduced, thus stabilizing the market expectation of the real economy and providing a good financial environment for economic and social development.
Finance is an important core competitiveness of a country, financial system is an important basic system in economic and social development, and financial security is an important content of national security. Since its birth, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has recognized the importance of finance, attached great importance to financial work, and ensured the financial cause to move in the right direction. From supporting the revolutionary war, to establishing a new regime, and then to serving the socialist modernization, the financial industry has achieved leap-forward development again and again. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee, China’s high-quality financial development has made new major achievements, the financial system has been continuously improved, and financial supervision has been improved, which has effectively supported the overall economic and social development in the new era and made important contributions to building a well-off society in an all-round way as scheduled and achieving the goal of the first century. In the new era and new journey, Chinese modernization will comprehensively promote the construction of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation. We must speed up the construction of a financial power, comprehensively strengthen financial supervision, improve the financial system, optimize financial services, guard against and resolve risks, unswervingly follow the road of financial development with China characteristics, and promote the high-quality development of China’s finance.
2. The inherent requirements of a socialist modern financial power
The first is people’s nature. "People’s interests first" is the value pursuit of China’s financial work. If finance does not serve the interests of the country and the people, there will be chaos in the financial field. Financial work must adhere to the people-centered value orientation, the fundamental purpose of financial services to the real economy, the eternal theme of financial work, the deepening of structural reform on the financial supply side, the overall planning of financial opening and security, and the general tone of striving for progress while maintaining stability. This requires the financial work to practice the Party’s purpose, the financial system to improve its political position, adhere to political principles, firm its political direction and maintain its political strength, and always bear in mind that the Party’s purpose is to serve the people wholeheartedly, and the people’s position is the fundamental position of the Party and the fundamental position of the financial work led by the Party.
The second is marketization. The central financial work conference pointed out that "we should persist in promoting financial innovation and development on the track of marketization and rule of law". Market economy is essentially an economy in which the market determines the allocation of resources. Practice has proved that the allocation of resources by the market is the most efficient way of resource allocation. To improve the level of market-oriented allocation of financial resources, on the one hand, we must vigorously develop the capital market, optimize the financing structure, and give full play to the hub function of the capital market. The development degree of capital market represents the development degree of financial marketization in a certain sense, and it is the most dynamic platform in the financial system. Developing capital market plays a key role in building a modern economic system. On the other hand, we should steadily promote the reform of interest rate marketization, so that interest rates can give full play to the role of guiding resource allocation. Steadily promoting interest rate marketization is one of the core contents of improving macro-control and deepening financial reform in China, and the interest rate marketization reform can play a vital role in the efficient allocation of funds.
The third is internationalization. Adhere to both "bringing in" and "going out", steadily expand the institutional opening of the financial sector, enhance the facilitation of cross-border investment and financing, attract more foreign-funded financial institutions and long-term capital to develop their businesses in China, and serve the construction of the "Belt and Road". To this end, it is necessary to further optimize the business environment, continue to significantly reduce the restrictions on foreign investment access, create a new platform for international cooperation, provide global investors with a stable investment place under the rule of law, and strive to become the first choice for foreign enterprises to invest. Adhere to the overall planning of financial opening and security, and strive to promote high-level financial opening. High-level financial openness requires steady and prudent internationalization of RMB, which will help enterprises to guard against the risk of liquidity shortage, realize the stability of global foreign exchange reserves, and make RMB an "anchor currency", which is the need of rebalancing global economic development.
The fourth is technology. The financial industry is an information-intensive industry, and information is very important to the financial industry. According to the theory of financial intermediary, financial intermediary has the function of information production, which can provide information to the market and alleviate the information asymmetry between the two parties. Due to the advantages of network in information production and transmission, financial technology not only speeds up information transmission, but also improves the ability of information collection and reduces the cost of information processing, thus improving the information production ability of financial intermediaries. At present, the network has become a platform for human beings to create and share information, and the traditional information dissemination mode is undergoing essential changes under the promotion of network information technology. Financial technology promotes the integration of electronic information technology and traditional finance, innovates the financial format, increases the convenience of financial services, and improves the quality of financial services to the real economy in many fields.
The fifth is inclusiveness. The purpose of inclusive finance is to enable everyone to get financial services at the right price in a timely and dignified manner when they need them. Inclusive finance is consistent with the development concept of "sharing". The economic value of inclusive finance lies in helping to adjust the imbalance between supply and demand of finance, especially the imbalance between supply and demand of financial structure, so that finance can better serve the real economy. The social value of inclusive finance lies in helping low-income people and small and micro enterprises to obtain financial services, so that everyone can have the right to enjoy financial services fairly. In essence, inclusive finance helps low-income groups and small and micro enterprises get the right to get rich through fair development, which can promote inclusive economic growth and harmonious social development.
The sixth is security. The Central Financial Work Conference called for "strengthening financial supervision in an all-round way and effectively preventing and resolving financial risks". Preventing financial risks and maintaining financial security are the eternal themes of financial work. Financial markets and financial institutions must be supervised according to law in order to better guard against financial risks and safeguard the interests of investors. Financial institutions are different from ordinary enterprises, and once something goes wrong, it may lead to systemic risks. The financial industry has strong publicity, externality and sociality, and financial risks are highly contagious and hidden, which requires that financial supervision must be strict, "measuring to the end with a ruler".
3. Promote the construction of a strong financial country with structural reform on the financial supply side.
Over the past 40 years, China’s financial system has been continuously improved in the reform. To build a strong financial country, we must continue to rely on reform, especially deepen the structural reform of the financial supply side, improve the financial market, financial institutions and financial product systems by optimizing the financial structure, clarify the market-oriented objectives and strengthen the responsibility of supervision, and keep the bottom line that systematic financial risks do not occur.
Give full play to the function of the capital market hub. For a long time, China mainly relied on the indirect financing system dominated by banks, which led to a high leverage ratio of enterprises and increased financial risks to some extent. Therefore, it is necessary to further improve the financial market structure, enlarge and strengthen the capital market, build a standardized, transparent, open, dynamic and resilient capital market, and increase the proportion of direct financing. At the critical stage of China’s economy from high-speed growth to high-quality development, the capital market will play a central role in adjusting the industrial structure and building an innovative economic system. Since the reform and opening up, China’s capital market construction has made great progress, but it still faces the problems of low efficiency and imperfect mechanism. To further improve the capital market in the new period, on the one hand, let the capital market play a decisive role in resource allocation. We will promote the deepening of the stock issuance registration system, develop diversified equity financing, vigorously improve the quality of listed companies, and cultivate first-class investment banks and institutions. On the other hand, better play the role of the government. The regulatory authorities maintain the fairness and transparency of the market, resolutely crack down on illegal activities such as market manipulation, insider trading and false information disclosure, and pay more attention to protecting the interests of investors.
Steadily and prudently promote the internationalization of RMB. As long as China’s economy can maintain a high-quality growth momentum, RMB internationalization will be realized stably. In this process, it is necessary to cultivate high-quality development and high-level open microeconomic entities, with the focus on improving the competitiveness of enterprises and products. In addition, we will unswervingly deepen reform and opening up in the financial sector. In the future, the interest rate and exchange rate of RMB should be determined by the market, and the opening of capital account and financial market should be promoted step by step under the principle of efficiency, stability and effectiveness, so that offshore RMB can have a better investment place. Improve the infrastructure construction of RMB internationalization, and strive to realize the services of RMB cross-border payment system (CIPS) wherever there is RMB.
Build a modern central banking system and always maintain the stability of monetary policy. The independence of the central bank is an important part of the modern central banking system. We should strive to create a good monetary and financial environment, always maintain the stability of monetary policy, pay more attention to cross-cycle and countercyclical adjustment, and enrich the monetary policy toolbox. At present, the main goal of unblocking the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is to establish the transmission mechanism of price-based monetary policy by deepening the interest rate marketization reform, taking the loan market quotation rate (LPR) indirectly regulated by the central bank as the operational goal of monetary policy, taking the deposit and loan interest rate of financial institutions determined by market supply and demand as the intermediate goal of monetary policy, and keeping the currency stable and promoting economic growth as the ultimate goal of monetary policy.
Adhere to the implementation of inclusive finance. An important part of promoting the structural reform of the financial supply side is to build a multi-level, wide-coverage and differentiated banking system. In this system, commercial banks, policy banks, city commercial banks, rural financial institutions, private banks and village banks have their own positions, perform their duties and complement each other. State-owned commercial banks should define their position, take the establishment of modern enterprise system as the guide, and keep a close eye on the core goal of "becoming stronger, better and bigger". Policy banks should clearly define their functions, clarify their business boundaries, and take national interests and national strategic needs as their business values. Their main role is to make up for market failures in some areas and do things that commercial banks are unwilling to do, cannot do and cannot do well. Rural commercial banks can better serve small and medium-sized enterprises by relying on the long-term accumulated local credit and its flexible interest rate policy. They should identify their own differentiated positioning, establish business priorities, pay attention to meeting the differentiated, personalized and customized business needs of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" and small and medium-sized enterprises, and "do small things" to reduce the loan concentration and the loan scale per household.
Comprehensively strengthen financial supervision and effectively prevent and resolve financial risks. Comprehensively strengthen institutional supervision, behavioral supervision, functional supervision, penetrating supervision and continuous supervision, eliminate regulatory gaps and blind spots, and better safeguard financial security. First, improve the modern financial enterprise system with China characteristics, improve the management of state-owned financial capital, broaden the channels for bank capital replenishment, and do a good job in risk isolation between industry and finance. Early identification, early warning, early exposure and early disposal of risks, sound early correction mechanism of financial risks with hard constraints, and timely disposal of risks of small and medium-sized financial institutions. The second is to establish a long-term mechanism to prevent and resolve local debt risks, establish a government debt management mechanism that is compatible with high-quality development, and optimize the debt structure of central and local governments. The third is to prevent financial risks caused by the real estate market. Promote a virtuous circle between finance and real estate, improve the main supervision system and fund supervision of real estate enterprises, improve macro-prudential management of real estate finance, and meet the reasonable financing needs of real estate enterprises with different ownership equally. The fourth is to strengthen the supervision of financial technology. The rapid development of financial technology has enhanced the concealment of financial risks, added many new financial risk points, and put forward higher requirements for the ability of financial supervision. Therefore, financial supervision departments need to innovate financial supervision means and balance the relationship between financial innovation and financial security, so as to encourage financial innovation that will help improve the efficiency of financial services and control financial risks within a safe range.
Guangming Daily (November 10, 2023, 06 edition)