Chongqing- Promotion of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle is a major strategic deployment of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and State Council and holds long-term significance for the new dual-cycle development pattern.

Under this background, the release of a new plan on December 24, 2021, to build a financial center in the Chengdu-Chongqing area by 2025 has defined the policy framework of Six Systems and One Foundation, putting forward 28 specific policies and measures for systems related to financial organization, markets, services, innovation, opening up, ecosystems and infrastructure.

In addition, the Belt and Road Initiative is to help further promote financial reform and opening up, build the Chengdu-Chongqing region into a western financial center orientated towards Southeast Asia, create an important growth pole, and source greater impetus for high-quality development.

James Wemyss is the director of the strategy and business management at Stone Tan Finance. This financial leasing company provides financing and credit lines to small and medium manufacturing enterprises, with operations based in the Jiangbeizui CBD of Chongqing. 

Professor Yao Shujie has taught at Chongqing University since 2014 and was previously head of the School for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. In the past, he has also been an economic consultant for the United Nations Development Program and World Bank and has worked in over twenty countries.

Over the course of this roundtable discussion, the two guests shared their views on the current financial environment in Chongqing, where the financial services market has seen rapid growth since becoming a municipality in 1997. Dynamic growth in the real economy of Southwest China means there is now very strong demand in this area, and so the time has come for Chongqing and Chengdu to build a Western Financial Center in order to meet the needs of this development.

Green finance is a relatively new term that has entered the arena of discussion over recent years. During this roundtable, our two guests offer their expert insight into the practical implications, which mean tougher financing rules for traditional polluting industries, coupled with incentives for emerging industries that consume less energy and drive innovation.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a free trade agreement that came into effect on January 1, 2022, between ASEAN and China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Since Chongqing and Chengdu are both located at a critical juncture in world trade with advanced infrastructure in transport logistics, a strong financial sector can play a vital role in providing multi-modal transport packages between producers and customers.

Technical innovations such as big data are also discussed over the roundtable, where our guests describe how these new techniques allow company analysts to study market trends, identify new customers and speed up company development. As the Western Financial Center takes shape, such innovations will play a major role in driving the growth of the industry in Southwest China.