ma delun : urban and rural integration in china address by mr ma delun, deputy governor of the people ’ s bank of china, at the 2010 capital financial forum, beijing, 16 april 2010. * * * respected executive vice mayor of the city of jilin, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon! it ’ s a pleasure to attend the beijing financial forum for 2010. this annual meeting has provided us with a platform to discuss theoretical and practical issues of common concerns. the discussion last year under the theme of cultural and creative industries and its financial support was very impressive. i ’ m also glad to see that the forum is in a larger scale and more innovative form this year, and the theme this year, urban and rural integration in the capital and its financial support, is a very pertinent one. agriculture lies at the foundation of china ’ s economy and the balanced development of urban and rural areas is the core in china ’ s modernization. deng xiaoping once pointed out that, coordinated urban - rural development should be on top of the agenda after china ’ s economic and social development reached a certain stage. it was put forward by the 16th congress of cpc central committee that balancing urban - rural social and economic development is an important strategy for building a well - off society. the 17th congress of cpc central committee decided that a long - term mechanism of industrial sector supporting agriculture and urban areas to form a new framework for balanced urban - rural economic and social development. what ’ s more, the no. 1 document of the cpc central committee this year has given high priority to balanced urban - rural development, stating it as the precondition for further consolidating the foundation for rural development. balanced urban - rural development need the support of the financing sector. as a macro financial regulator, the pbc attaches great importance to this task and has made strenuous efforts in advancing financial reform, improving financial services in rural areas and strengthening financial support to balanced urban - rural development according to the overall arrangements of the state council. first, deepen rural financial reform. efforts have been made to promote the shareholding reform of agricultural bank of china ( abc ), guide the agricultural development bank to raise funds from the market, steadily advance pilot projects of new rural financial institutions including micro credit companies, village banks and rural funding cooperatives to establish a multi - tiered rural financial service system. second, strengthen financial support for rural areas. the pbc will continue to conduct agriculture

been spelled out in the company law. in the content of corporate governance, a substantial part is about philosophy, principles and guidelines, which is not to be explicitly defined by laws or regulations. one of the important issues is about coverage of stake - holders. in terms of definition, stakeholders in a broad sense should include investors, whose rights and interests are covered by the company law. generally speaking, stakeholders as we speak of refer to employees, businesses with which a company has a stable relationship, and creditors. for enterprises with environmental impacts, the concept extends to the neighboring communities. corporate governance is a new concept for the chinese. our first attempt to include corporate governance in important government documents in 1993 failed because the concept was not widely accepted. it was not until 1999 was it included in the documents of the fourth plenary session of the 15th national congress of cpc. we still have a lot to learn on this subject. initially, the emphasis was on guarding the owners ’ interests, making profit for owners, as well as setting up a good check and balance relationship and structure. then, corporate governance was translated as corporate governance structure in chinese, emphasizing the importance of a good structure. even though each country has its country - specific corporate governance stemming from its cultural tradition and legal system, some common elements are the most important and most basic. these common elements are included in two very important oecd documents that are worth our attention and research. one is the five principles on corporate governance released in 1999. the other is revised principles on corporate governance issued in 2004. the 1999 version listed the role of stakeholders in corporate governance as a separate principle, and stated that the legitimate rights should be established in the corporate governance framework, to encourage companies and stakeholders to work together to create wealth and employment and ensure the company ’ s financial soundness and sustainability. the document included the following four parts. first, the corporate governance framework make sure that stakeholders ’ legitimate rights are respected ; second, when their legitimate rights are violated, the stake - holders should be compensated ; third, the corporate governance framework should provide a mechanism for stakeholders to participate in enhancing a company ’ s performance ; especially, it should allow different stakeholders to play different roles. however, the extent to which stakeholders are involved in managing the company should vary according to the laws and regulations and to different companies. for example, employee shall be represented at the board ; employee share - holding plan or other profit sharing mechanism shall be put into place ; views of stakeholders shall be