From November 20 to 22, the International Finance Forum 2020 Annual Meeting was 
held in Nansha, Guangzhou. Under the theme of "Comprehensive and Sustainable 
Development - Wide Consultation, Co-operation and Crisis Response", it 
attracted nearly 200 financial representatives, business leaders and experts to 
discuss on the topics like Monetary and Fiscal Policies in the New Landscape: 
Opportunities and Challenges, WTO Reform and Future Global Trade System, Carbon 
Pricing, Greater Bay Area Cooperation and Development etc.

Sustainable development highlighted at IFF

The outbreak of COVID-19 makes it more urgent to build a community with a 
shared future for mankind. Gao Yan, chairman of the China Council for the 
Promotion of International Trade, said: "The world is undergoing changes unseen 
in a century, which is now accelerated by the pandemic. The world economy is in 
a deep recession. The global industrial chain and supply chain have been 
negatively affected. Unilateralism and protectionism have occurred, and the 
economic globalization has encountered a countercurrent. This year's meeting 
focuses on sustainable development, which shares similar goals and ideas with 
the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, benefiting all 
mankind and the world."

According to Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, countries need more 
liquidity and resources to deal with the crisis and promote recovery. He stated 
that global public finance should pay attention to the countries and industries 
in need, promoting sustainable development.

Han Seung-soo, co-chair of IFF Council, former prime minister of South Korea 
and former president of the U.N. General Assembly shares similar views. "We 
cannot sacrifice the interests of mankind in pursuit of short-term economic 
growth. This important message must be passed on through this event. Finance 
can play its own role in promoting future investment in a more sustainable way."

Global Green Finance Innovation Award first initiated

In September, Chinese leader delivered an important speech at the General 
Debate of the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly, calling on all countries 
to pursue innovative, coordinated, green and open development for all, seize 
the historic opportunities presented by the new round of scientific and 
technological revolution and industrial transformation, achieve a green 
recovery of the world economy in the post-COVID era.

This year, IFF first initiated the Global Green Finance Innovation Award to 
praise the innovative solutions of global green finance, in ways to deepen 
international exchanges and cooperation in green finance and promote successful 
experience in its development and contribute to sustainable development. The 
award review committee consists of 15 important leaders with global influence 
and authority, together with elites from areas of finance and environment, 
selected special contribution award institutions and relevant projects.

Confidence shown in financial development of Nansha

From 2017 to 2019, the IFF Annual Meeting has been held in Guangzhou for three 
consecutive years. Just two months ago, Nansha witnessed the foundation-stone 
laying ceremony of the IFF permanent venue, which will be developed as the 
platform of global innovative finance and the one to allocate financial 
resources.

Why choose Nansha? Recently, it has given answers in aspects like optimizing 
the business environment, encouraging financial innovation, and supporting 
financial services.

In July the Nansha Financial Bureau announced the optimized measures to support 
the financial industry, broadening the scope of rewards, increasing the types 
of rewards, raising the amount of reward, and enhancing the attractiveness of 
policies. The measures aim at improve the business environment of the financial 
industry and gathered high quality financial resources.

In addition, Nansha actively promotes financial reform and innovation to inject 
new momentum into the real economy. At present, Nansha has a total of 42 
financial innovation practices or pilot projects. Among them, the intelligent 
local financial risk monitoring and prevention platform is selected as one of 
the best practice case in the pilot free trade zone.

As of September 2020, Nansha has settled a total of 6,559 financial and similar 
financial enterprises, the number of which increases 52 times compared with 
that before the launch of pilot free trade zone.

Source: The International Finance Forum 2020 Annual Meeting