With the financial sector opening up wider and wider, the ShanghaiHong Kong Stock Connect, the Shanghai Gold Exchange international board, the Bond Connect and crude oil futures have been introduced successively; the interbank bond market, foreign exchange market and money market have been opening up with quickened pace; and pilot programs, such as overseas RMB investment and lending funds and cross-border exchangetraded funds (ETFs), have been launched successfully.
At the same time, there has been progress since the beginning of the year in the area of banks’ Non Performing Exposures (NPE). At end-June 2017, the stock of Non-Performing Exposures (including off balance sheet items) was 3.2% lower than at end-December 2016. Following the pattern of previous quarters, the outflow of NPEs coming from collections, liquidations and sales of loans was rather limited.