President Hu Jintao said more must be done to improve supervision of China's financial sector, the Wall Street Journal reported. "The more developed the financial [system], the more supervision is needed. Financial supervision is the most important of important tasks," Hu was quoted by state media as saying at a meeting of senior Communist Party officials. While the president did not refer explicitly to the country's surging stock markets – the Shanghai Composite Index is up nearly 90% so far this year – his comments will no doubt draw further attention to the need for good oversight in this area. Hu rarely talks in public about the economy or the financial system. The meeting also featured a presentation from Ba Shusong, a researcher at the Development Research Center under China's cabinet who recently published a paper about the possibility of a stock market bubble. Ba's conclusions were largely positive, noting that "mainstream parts of the market are healthy."