Title:Thoughts on Strengthening Financial Cooperation between Shanghai and China's Hong Kong in the New Era

According to the Global Financial Centres Index 29  released in March 2021 jointly by China Development Institute and the British think tank Z/Yen，Shanghai and Hong Kong ranked third and fourth respectively among the global financial centers. The construction of Shanghai into an international financial center has almost been completed. So China have two major international financial centers – China's Hong Kong and Shanghai at the moment when China is entering the “14th Five-Year Plan” period and embarking on a new journey towards a socialist modern country. The coordinated and integrated development of the two major international financial centers will not only help consolidate their respective positions in the global financial world，but also support the modernization of China in the new era.

General information of the two major international financial centers

Remarkable results have been achieved in the construction of Shanghai as an international financial center. Through 30 years of unremitting efforts，The construction of Shanghai as an international financial center has achieved  rapid development and  the strategic goal of Shanghai “becoming an international financial center commensurate with the economic strength of China and the international status of the renminbi by 2020” has been successfully achieved. So far，a multi-level financial market and financial institution system has almost taken shape in Shanghai，and in terms of scale，multiple key financial markets rank among the top in the world. As of the end of 2019，there had been 1,646 licensed financial institutions in Shanghai，of which 517 were foreign-funded ones，accounting for 31%. In 2020，the market value of all shares and the funds raised in IPOs on the Shanghai Stock Exchange both ranked third in the world，making it the third largest stock exchange. The scale of custody in the Chinese bond market ranks second in the world，and the Shanghai Stock Exchange is the world’s largest exchange bond market. The Shanghai Futures Exchange ranks first in the world in trading volumes of multiple products，and the crude oil futures market ranks third in the world. The spot gold trading volume on the Shanghai Gold Exchange retains first place in the world.