Further Facilitating Current Account to Better Serve Real Economy

CHINA FOREX: In recent years, the Current Account Management Department (hereinafter referred to as the Department)has rolled out a series of policy measures to streamline foreign exchange transactions for market entities and individuals. What further work was undertaken in 2025? What are the objectives and key priorities for 2026?

JIA Ning: In 2025, focusing on serving the real economy and facilitating foreign exchange use for people's livelihoods, the Department actively responded to the demands of market entities. By expanding the coverage of facilitation policies, improving the efficiency of fund settlement, lowering corporate financial costs, and optimizing foreign exchange services, it continuously enhanced market entities' sense of gain from facilitation policies, better aligning with the new landscape of high-standard opening-up. This was specifically manifested in the following aspects.

Firstly, targeted reform measures were intensified to stabilize foreign trade. In response to changing external conditions and evolving market needs, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) issued the Notice of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Further Facilitating Foreign Exchange Fund Settlement to Support the Stable Development of Foreign Trade (Huifa [2025] No.47). The Notice introduced nine facilitation measures in three areas: upgrading and expanding facilitation policies, supporting the sound development of innovative business practices, and improving fund utilization efficiency of service trade enterprises.

These measures streamlined procedures and reduced costs for cross-border trade settlement, allowing more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) engaged in emerging trade formats to access more convenient settlement arrangements, and further improved the quality and efficiency of foreign exchange services in boosting foreign trade.

Secondly, institutional opening-up was accelerated to deepen cross-border trade settlement facilitation. The pilot programs for high-standard opening-up in cross-border trade continued to be expanded and upgraded, with further optimization of management and simplification of procedures for netting settlement and centralized receipts and payments by multinational corporations. In 2025, facilitation-related business nationwide surpassed US$1.5 trillion. To support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and enterprises in their "going global" endeavors, the Department expanded the scope of centralized allocation of funds for overseas contracted projects from projects within the same country (region) to those across different countries (regions). This helped activate idle funds, supported enterprises in improving market layout, optimizing resource allocation, facilitating financing, and enhanced their exchange rate risk management capacity and overseas competitiveness. By the end of 2025, five contracted engineering enterprises in Beijing, Jiangsu, Sichuan, and other regions had benefited from the new policy, with their account balances approaching nearly US$1 billion. Meanwhile, in light of the common practice of domestic and overseas institutions providing advance payments on behalf of others for services such as customs clearance, warehousing, and logistics, the Current Account Management Department further simplified settlement procedures for such transactions. This enabled enterprises to directly and efficiently recover advance freight charges, taxes, and other fees, thereby easing their capital turnover pressures. In terms of continuously upgrading government service quality, two types of administrative licensing items - "foreign exchange returns beyond the time limit or not through the original route" and "service trade foreign exchange retained overseas" - realized full-process online handling, allowing enterprises to complete business procedures without physical visits.

Thirdly, diversified foreign exchange needs were met to foster an open and convenient foreign exchange business environment. By leveraging the credit enhancement role of high-quality enterprises, banks may handle foreign exchange purchases, payments, receipts and settlements related to remuneration for foreign-related employees within approved quotas without requiring additional supporting documents, increasing processing efficiency by more than 90%. Payment services for foreign nationals in China were enhanced by guiding Alipay and Tenpay to further optimize the management of "linking foreign bank cards to domestic payment apps". After linking bank cards to apps like Alipay and WeChat, foreign visitors to China can meet their large-value mobile payment needs in scenarios such as accommodation, education, and medical services via QR code payments. Foreign exchange services were also guaranteed for major sports events, including the Harbin Asian Winter Games, the World Games 2025 Chengdu, the Dalian 2025 FISU University World Cup Football, and the 15th National Games, with simplified procedures for foreign currency cash deposits and withdrawals by institutions and related foreign exchange use within event zones.

The year 2026 marks the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan and the 30th anniversary of current account convertibility. The Department will continue to follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and thoroughly study and implement the guiding principles of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, and the Central Economic Work Conference. It will closely adapt its work to changing realities and conditions to develop a foreign exchange administration system and mechanism characterized by "greater convenience, greater openness, greater security and greater intelligence". Efforts will focus on advancing high-standard opening-up, serving high-quality development, adhering to the principle of benefiting enterprises and the people, and balancing development and security. By leveraging the synergy of existing and incremental policies, upholding the principle of pursuing progress while maintaining stability, and focusing on improving quality and efficiency, the Department will support the high-quality development of the foreign-related economy. Firstly, it will deepen trade facilitation reforms, expand the pilot areas for high-standard opening-up in cross-border trade, with partic=ular attention to regions with lower benefit coverage, so as to foster a virtuous cycle of "the more integrity, the more facilitation" and "the more compliance, the more support". Secondly, it will promote alignment and integration between the pilot programs for high-standard opening-up in cross-border trade and the reform of banks' foreign exchange business, so as to generate synergy and continuously enhance banks' service capacity and enterprises' convenience in handling foreign exchange business. Thirdly, it will improve the management of enterprises' trade credit reporting to enhance regulatory effectiveness and help enterprises reduce costs and improve efficiency. Fourthly, it will continue to enhance the convenience of individuals' foreign exchange use by supporting more qualified banks to handle online foreign exchange purchases and settlements for purposes such as overseas study and remuneration that are not subject to individual facilitation quotas.

CHINA FOREX: The new forms and models of trade in China has become a key driver to foster new competitive advantages and advance high-quality trade. What new policy measures has the Department rolled out to support these new business forms? How will it respond to emerging market needs in the future?

JIA Ning: In recent years, new trade forms such as cross-border e-commerce and market procurement have undergone constant upgrading and iteration, enabling a growing number of SMEs to sell products globally through various cross-border e-commerce platforms. Promoting the innovative and sound development of new trade forms and models helps unlock new growth areas, foster new competitive edges, and inject new impetus into China's high-quality economic development. The SAFE has taken the initiative to advance the digitalization and online processing of business procedures, enabling efficient cross-border fund settlements to serve as strong support for foreign trade enterprises to go global. Major efforts include the following:

On the one hand, foreign exchange settlement channels for cross-border e-commerce have been continuously broadened. In line with the characteristics of cross-border e-commerce transactions - high frequency, small value, and online operations - the coverage of electronic transaction settlement has been further expanded. Currently, a total of 30 payment institutions and banks are able to provide foreign exchange settlement facilitation services for SMEs engaged in cross-border e-commerce based on electronic transaction information, benefiting more than 1.8 million micro and small merchants. Support has been given to the integrated development of "cross-border e-commerce + foreign trade comprehensive services". Banks have been guided to conduct online automatic foreign exchange receipts and payments for cross-border e-commerce, as well as netting settlements between overseas expenses and goods payments for foreign trade comprehensive service enterprises an