Drive Foreign Exchange Regulatory Reform through Sci-Tech Empowerment...

Title: Drive Foreign Exchange Regulatory Reform through Sci-Tech Empowerment and Data Empowerment

China Forex: Since 2019， SAFE has been building the cross-border financial service platform in response to market demands，providing solid support for high-quality economic development，and winning wide praise from banks and enterprises. In 2022，what are the new plans for the platform?

Zhang Tiecheng: In 2021，we focused on serving the real economy，and gave full play to the advantages of the cross-border financial service platform in coping with corporate financing difficulties and high financing costs，which accurately met the needs of banks and enterprises. Through building the cross-border financial service platform，we have made new progress in serving the real economy，including “two new scenarios”，“two upgrades”，and synchronized “multiple advancements”. The term "two scenarios" refers to the application scenarios of export credit insurance policy financing，and China-Europe Chang'an freight train financing. The term "two upgrades" refers to upgrade the service trade tax filing electronic bank verification scenario to support "one-time tax filing and multiple foreign exchange payments" and upgrade the logistics financing settlement scenario of the new western land-sea channel. "Multiple advancements": First，expand the pilot application scenarios for the authenticity review of capital account income payment facilitation，by adding new pilot areas in Heilongjiang，Henan，Shenzhen，and Anhui. Second，promoting the pilot application scenarios such as the export accounts receivable，and enterprise credit information authorization verification，with the business scale in 2021 up by 61% compared with 2020. Third，support banks to optimize and innovate business based on the cross-border financial service platform，and develop a series of credit loan products. Up to now，five financing scenarios and two foreign exchange policy facilitation scenarios have been launched on the platform. By the end of 2021，more than 300 corporate banks have participated in the financing scenarios，serving more than 11,000 companies，with the financing amount exceeding US$120 billion; the foreign exchange policy facilitation scenarios have involved more than 500 corporate banks and served over 50,000 companies，with foreign exchange payments of US$560 billion. Judging from market feedback，the platform can effectively reduce corporate financial costs and bank risk control costs，and enhance banks' willingness to handle financing. It can also improve the scale and efficiency of corporate financing，and stimulate preferential bank financing interest rates and innovative financing products. Therefore，it has been widely welcomed by market players and local governments.

In 2022，we will intensify our efforts to enable the pilot cross-border financial service platform to "keep foreign investment and foreign trade stable"，and further expand the platform application. First，accelerate the construction of maritime freight payment facilitation. By introducing information such as invoices and payments，we will improve the ability of banks to review the authenticity and uniqueness of logistics freight information，facilitating the external payment of ocean freight by enterprises. Second，enrich export credit insurance policy financing products. We will enhance the cooperation with China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation，for instance，developing new insurance such as Small and Medium-Size Enterprise Comprehensive Cover Insurance，and Small and Micro Enterprise Easy Credit Insurance，and bolstering credit insurance financing support. This will achieve full coverage of short-term export insurance policy financing business，broaden the scope of corporate financing audiences，and provide more ways to alleviate corporate financing difficulties. Third，expand the application scenarios of the Belt and Road Initiative. We will improve the application scenarios of financing and settlement of the new western land-sea channels and the China-Europe trains. In addition，by strengthening cooperation with local government departments，railway transportation departments，and logistics platform companies based on actual conditions，we will provide financing and settlement services for small and medium-sized enterprises such as upstream and downstream logistics，import and export companies along the supply chain of the Belt and Road Initiative，so that the cross-border financial service platform can play a greater role in hi