State Administration of Foreign Exchange: Carry out countercyclical adjustments in due course to maintain the stability of the foreign exchange market and the country's economic and financial security

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on August 1, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange held a video exchange meeting on foreign exchange management work for the second half of 2025. The conference emphasized preventing and mitigating the risk of external shocks. Strengthen the monitoring and analysis of the foreign exchange situation, strengthen macroprudential management and anticipatory guidance of cross-border capital flows, carry out countercyclical adjustments in due course, and maintain the stability of the foreign exchange market and the country's economic and financial security.

The conference emphasized deepening the reform and opening up of the foreign exchange sector. Support the steady development of foreign trade, and implement a package of trade and foreign exchange management reforms, such as optimizing the settlement of foreign exchange funds for new forms of foreign trade and facilitating the centralized management of overseas funds of contract engineering enterprises. Actively promote the facilitation of cross-border investment and financing, promote the implementation of a package of measures such as canceling domestic reinvestment registration of foreign-invested enterprises and facilitate cross-border financing for technology-based enterprises, implement capital pool management policies for multinational companies throughout the country, launch pilot green foreign debt policies, and optimize and improve the management of overseas listing funds for domestic enterprises. Promote the reform, expansion and quality of the bank's foreign exchange exhibition industry. Deepen the development of the foreign exchange market and continue to improve corporate exchange rate risk management services. Support open regional development according to local conditions, actively support the promotion strategy of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, and support the Hainan Free Trade Port and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to carry out innovation in foreign exchange management.

The full text is as follows:

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange held an exchange meeting on foreign exchange management work in the second half of 2025

On August 1, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange held a video exchange meeting on foreign exchange management work for the second half of 2025. Guided by Xi Jinping's ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, the conference conveyed the spirit of studying and implementing the Politburo meeting, summarized foreign exchange management work in the first half of the year, analyzed the current financial and foreign exchange situation, and deployed work for the second half of the year. Zhu He, Party Secretary and Director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, made a new work report. Members of the party group and deputy director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange attended the meeting.

The conference pointed out that since 2025, foreign exchange management departments have earnestly implemented the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference, coordinated risk prevention, strong supervision, and development promotion in the foreign exchange sector, and strictly and pragmatically promoted central inspection and rectification, and achieved positive results in all aspects of their work. The first is to uphold and strengthen the overall leadership of the Party. Deeply study and implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech, solidly carry out study and education on the spirit of thoroughly implementing the Eight Regulations of the Central Committee, and unswervingly push for comprehensive and strict government of the Party. The second is to increase foreign exchange efforts to support the high-quality development of the real economy. Actively support the stabilization of foreign trade, promote policies to facilitate foreign exchange payments for high-quality enterprise trade, expand the scope and quality of high-level open cross-border trade pilots, and support more banks and payment institutions to use electronic transaction information to handle foreign exchange settlement services for new trade entities. Promote cross-border investment and financing management reforms in an orderly manner, expand the pilot project of integrated local and foreign currency fund pools for multinational companies, distribute new investment amounts of US$3.08 billion to qualified domestic institutional investors (QDII), and study and formulate a package of measures to deepen the foreign exchange management reform of cross-border investment and financing. Improve corporate exchange rate risk management services, and the corporate foreign exchange hedging ratio reached a record high in the first half of the year. Steadily push forward the reform of the bank's foreign exchange exhibition business. Banks handled more than 200 billion US dollars in cross-border payments based on customer instructions. Actively support the open development of the region and support the construction of the Shanghai International Financial Center. Third, vigorously maintain the steady operation of the foreign exchange market. Maintaining the flexibility of the RMB exchange rate and strengthening the “macroprudence+microsupervision” two-in-one management of the foreign exchange market, China's foreign exchange market has shown strong resilience in the complex situation. Fourth, focus on building a complete and effective foreign exchange supervision system. Improve the legal foundation of foreign exchange supervision, improve the working mechanism for foreign exchange supervision, and strictly crack down on illegal foreign exchange activities such as underground money stores. Fifth, improve the management of foreign exchange reserves. The size of foreign exchange reserves has stabilized at more than 3.2 trillion US dollars.

The conference emphasized that foreign exchange management departments should carefully study and understand the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the Politburo meeting of the Central Committee on the current economic situation and doing well in the second half of the year, effectively unify ideas and actions into the Party Central Committee's judgment and decision making and deployment of the economic and financial situation, adhere to the Party's overall leadership of financial and foreign exchange work, modernize the governance capacity of the foreign exchange sector's governance system, and establish and improve a “more convenient, more open, safer and more intelligent” foreign exchange management system mechanism, and unswervingly follow the path of financial development with Chinese characteristics for the high-quality development and advancement of China's economy It provides strong support for the Chinese-style modernization drive.

The conference laid out key tasks for foreign exchange management in the second half of 2025. The first is to comprehensively strengthen party building. Deeply implement the important requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping's “Five Further Approaches”, earnestly implement the spirit of the Financial System Party Building Work Conference, promote the normalization and long-term effectiveness of inspection and rectification, improve the quality and efficiency of systematic party building work, further promote comprehensive and strict government of the Party, improve the long-term mechanism of work style construction, and build a loyal, clean and responsible team of highly qualified and professional foreign exchange management cadres. The second is to deepen the reform and opening up of the foreign exchange sector. Support the steady development of foreign trade, and implement a package of trade and foreign exchange management reforms, such as optimizing the settlement of foreign exchange funds for new forms of foreign trade and facilitating the centralized management of overseas funds of contract engineering enterprises. Actively promote the facilitation of cross-border investment and financing, promote the implementation of a package of measures such as canceling domestic reinvestment registration of foreign-invested enterprises and facilitate cross-border financing for technology-based enterprises, implement capital pool management policies for multinational companies throughout the country, launch pilot green foreign debt policies, and optimize and improve the management of overseas listing funds for domestic enterprises. Promote the reform, expansion and quality of the bank's foreign exchange exhibition industry. Deepen the development of the foreign exchange market and continue to improve corporate exchange rate risk management services. Support open regional development according to local conditions, actively support the promotion strategy of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, and support the Hainan Free Trade Port and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to carry out innovation in foreign exchange management. The third is to prevent and mitigate the risk of external shocks. Strengthen the monitoring and analysis of the foreign exchange situation, strengthen macroprudential management and anticipatory guidance of cross-border capital flows, carry out countercyclical adjustments in due course, and maintain the stability of the foreign exchange market and the country's economic and financial security. Fourth, improve the capacity and level of supervision under open conditions. Strengthen the establishment of the rule of law in foreign exchange management. Improve supervision during and after the fact, use technological means to improve the effectiveness of supervision, and strictly crack down on illegal cross-border financial activities. Fifth, improve the management of foreign exchange reserves with Chinese characteristics, and maintain the safety, flow, and appreciation of foreign exchange reserve assets. The sixth is to promote the construction of a balance of payments statistics system and formulate an implementation plan for the “Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (7th Edition)”. The seventh is to comprehensively improve the level of foreign exchange management. Strengthen evaluation and verification before policy introduction and follow-up effectiveness after policy introduction. Deepen the construction of “digital external management” and “safe external management”, and explore the construction of “smart external management”. Continue to enrich the application scenarios of cross-border financial service platforms.

Relevant responsible comrades from various departments and affiliated units of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange were dispatched to attend the meeting at the main venue. Relevant comrades from the Office of the Central Committee on Finance and Economics, the Office of the Central Financial Commission, and the General Office of the State Council were invited to attend the meeting. Each provincial branch office attended the conference at various branch venues.

This article was selected from the “Official Website of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange”; Zhitong Finance Editor: Huang Xiaodong.