China’s forex regulator pledges to open up market

China’s foreign exchange regulator has pledged to help further open up the forex market, while strengthening oversight of cross-border capital flows in the second half of the year, reports the South China Morning Post.

“[We will] steadily expand the institutional opening-up in the foreign exchange sector,” the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement on Sunday. The regulator, which had held a work meeting on Saturday to lay out key priorities for the rest of the year, also pledged to promote trade facilitation reforms and introduce a package of measures to optimise foreign-exchange management for the current account.

To deepen the development of the forex market, authorities will reduce exchange-rate hedging costs for small and medium-sized enterprises by promoting multiparty cooperation, and support regions such as the Hainan free-trade port to pilot innovations in foreign-exchange management.