SAN FRANCISCO, CA – NOVEMBER 10: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (R) greets Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China He Lifeng at the start of a bilateral meeting at The Ritz-Carlton on November 10, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Secretary Yellen and Deputy Prime Minister Leving are scheduled to hold meetings before the APEC summit in San Francisco. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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BEIJING — Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met with global financial executives on Wednesday and pledged to make it easier for foreign institutions to invest in the country, state media reported.
The executives are part of the International Advisory Committee of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Deputy Prime Minister and also Director of the Office of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs.
The meeting comes as foreign investors have largely taken a wait-and-see approach to China amid uncertainty over the country's economic path and tensions with the United States.
The MSCI China stock index fell 11% in 2023. That marked the third straight year of annual declines, the first such losing streak in the past 20 years, according to Goldman Sachs.
“China will continue to deepen the reform and mutual opening of its capital market, facilitate cross-border investment and financing, and attract more foreign financial institutions and long-term capital to China,” He reportedly said during the meeting. According to the government news agency Xinhua.
China has gradually allowed foreign financial institutions to control its domestic operations. Last year, the securities regulator also implemented new rules to clarify the process of listing domestic companies abroad.
Separately, Harvard University President Emeritus Lawrence Summers met with People's Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng on Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Press release on the Central Bank's website.
Summers, a former US Treasury Secretary, hosted a lecture on the global economy and stagflation, the People's Bank of China said. In an email response to CNBC, Summers said the PBOC lecture “used the term secular stagnation rather than stagflation.”
Earlier this week, Xi met with Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining. According to the government announcement.
In-person meetings between Chinese officials and American officials, executives and academics have increased since China ended coronavirus-related travel restrictions more than a year ago.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang is scheduled to deliver a speech on Tuesday at the annual summit of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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