The move follows growing concern from investors over the global power’s economic slowdown
China’s Cabinet has created a new department to coordinate financial and economic affairs, Bloomberg recently reported.
According to Bloomberg, the move was an attempt to restore investor confidence in the government’s regulation of markets, which have been experiencing a slowdown since mid-2015.
The department, under the State Council’s general office, is tasked with coordinating between China’s financial and economic regulators and gathering data from local offices.
Investors have voiced concerns about the government’s credibility despite the implementation of several interventions to arrest the market slide that led equities to fall globally.
Since December, the Shanghai Composite Index has plunged more than 17%, and stock slides halted trading twice last week.
Dagong Europe’s insurance analytical team director Linas Grigaliunas, believes that the markets have the ability bounce back quickly and saw the new department as a positive addition.
He said: “With Chinese market’s multiplying speed of development, some structural changes to the regulatory framework are required and we believe are underway.”
“This attempt could be seen as the Chinese government’s response to create better coordination among the People’s bank of China (PBOC) and the three committees, before the material changes happen that might take quite some time.”
Grigaliunas added: “We would be more interested to observe if this mechanism can help to better integrate the Macro Prudential Assessment system recently announced by PBOC and see the impact to the banking and insurance industry, in particular the CIRC’s C-Ross that has just been launched this year.”
It’s unclear how much clout the new department will have given that financial policy is steered by a separate body, the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs.
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