A senior official from the Chinese central bank has called for driving greater financial inclusion to advance Beijing’s recently touted policy goal of achieving more equitable economic development in the form of “common prosperity.”
“Using the high-quality development of financial inclusion to drive the realisation of common prosperity is the requirement of the era with regard to the financial system,” said Liu Guiping (刘桂平), deputy-governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), on 16 December at the 2021 China Financial Inclusion International Forum (2021中国普惠金融国际论坛).
“Finance is the core of the modern economy, and plays an important role in economic and social development…we must make financial inclusion the key focal point for current financial work.
“The high-quality development of financial inclusion also faces considerable challenges, and requires continued deepening and improvement.
“This is specifically manifested in how financial inclusion can better support the consolidation of poverty alleviation drives and effectively prevent a return to poverty; how financial inclusion can expedite common prosperity via better integration into rural village revival strategies; how financial inclusion can help more low-income demographics to join the ranks of the middle-income demographics, and how the value and convenience of financial services can effectively benefit a broader population.
“Additionally, how can policies in relation to financial inclusion be more closely coordinated with fiscal policy, industrial policy and employment policy, to effectively form a basic system for the coordination of initial, secondary and tertiary allocations.”
