Customs closure, gathering wisdom and strength; finance leads the way to a new chapter - The Sanya International Finance Forum and the 5th Sanya Wealth Management Conference successfully held

On December 27th, coinciding with the crucial launch of the Hainan Free Trade Port's island-wide customs closure operation, the "Sanya International Finance Forum and the 5th Sanya Wealth Management Conference" was grandly held at the Sheraton Sanya Haitang Bay Resort Hotel. Hosted by the Sanya Municipal People's Government and co-organized by Beijing Caijing Magazine Co., Ltd., Caijing.com, Beijing Lianban Financial Think Tank International Information Management Consulting Co., Ltd., Beijing Lianban Financial News Culture Media Co., Ltd., Sanya Central Business District Administration Bureau, and Sanya Economic Research Institute, the conference, themed "The Future Positioning of the Hainan Free Trade Port and New Opportunities for Sanya", brought together over 300 elites from domestic and international political, business, and academic circles to discuss innovative paths for financial opening-up after the customs closure, injecting strong momentum into Sanya's industrial upgrading and high-quality development.

The conference boasted a distinguished lineup of guests from the political, business, and academic sectors. Leading domestic experts, including Yi Xiaozhun, former Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization and former Vice Minister of Commerce; Zhang Junkuo, member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of the China Development Research Foundation; renowned economist Wei Jie; and Yu Yongding, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, were present to discuss key issues. William Purpura, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New York Mercantile Exchange, shared his thoughts on free trade port development from a global perspective via video link. Industry leaders such as Fang Xinghai, former Vice Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and Guo Wenqin, Vice President of the Hainan Free Trade Port Research Institute, along with executives from renowned institutions like Hundsun Technologies, Deutsche Bank, and Harvest Wealth Management, gathered to deliver a thought-provoking feast focusing on openness and wealth.

At the beginning of the conference, Yin Chengling, Vice Mayor of Sanya Municipal People's Government, delivered a speech. In the subsequent keynote speeches and multiple parallel forums, guests engaged in in-depth discussions and offered suggestions on the financial opening-up pattern of the Free Trade Port and Sanya's development opportunities, with their viewpoints focusing on the core carriers and practical platforms for policy implementation. Yi Xiaozhun, starting from the international economic and trade situation, suggested leveraging the opportunity of the customs closure to deepen cross-border financial cooperation, amplify the synergistic effect of the Free Trade Port policies and industrial agglomeration, and make the core platform a link for cooperation. Wei Jie focused on the new characteristics of opening-up during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, proposing to promote the deep integration of finance with characteristic industries such as cultural tourism and marine economy, and to build a collaborative development ecosystem of "finance + characteristic industries" supported by the Sanya Central Business District. Zhao Jinping emphasized accelerating service trade innovation, suggesting using industrial parks as a fulcrum to inject continuous financial momentum into Sanya's industrial upgrading. William Purpura, from a global perspective, suggested supporting the core parks of the Free Trade Port to strengthen rule alignment with international financial hubs and create a financial opening-up window linking domestic and international markets.

The insightful opinions of the guests were grounded in Sanya's development realities and precisely aligned with the development practices and future plans of the Sanya Central Business District. Since its establishment in 2020, under the leadership of the Sanya Municipal Party Committee and Government, the Sanya Central Business District has leveraged the policy advantages of the Hainan Free Trade Port and Sanya's scarce climate and environmental resources. Targeting the demand for connecting domestic and international wealth management markets, and driven by institutional integration and innovation, it has propelled the financial industry to achieve leapfrog development, successfully establishing the "Wealthy Sanya" brand. It has been approved as a financial opening-up pilot zone by the Provincial Party Committee and Government, and the province's only demonstration zone for a modern financial industry cluster with a scale exceeding 100 billion yuan. The cluster was successfully established this year and will soon be officially approved, marking a new journey for Sanya's financial industry towards large-scale and clustered development.

Through a series of targeted and efficient measures, including improving the policy system, building service platforms, conducting precise investment promotion, innovating business scenarios, optimizing approval processes, and strengthening talent support, the park has achieved a high-quality leap forward: the assets under management of the enterprises that have settled in have reached 595.681 billion yuan, the scale of the "Double Q" pilot program leads the province, the proportion of QFLP is 50% and QDLP is 30%, Zijin International Holdings and Jianfa International Holdings have been successfully recognized as cross-border fund centralized operation centers, leading financial institutions such as Sequoia and Schroder have successively settled in, and it has incubated several pioneering financial businesses in the Hainan Free Trade Port, such as the first SPAC listing and the first S fund. At the same time, it has promoted the deep integration and synergistic empowerment of finance with the park's leading industries such as headquarters economy, modern commerce, cultural tourism, and cruise and yacht industries, and has become a core benchmark and demonstration model for financial opening and innovation in the Free Trade Port.

Sanya City will soon release an implementation plan for the wealth management industry chain leadership system, providing a clear "blueprint" for industrial development. This plan will innovatively promote a "chain leader + chain owner" linkage mechanism, with the chain leader coordinating and the chain owner exerting their efforts to jointly promote the growth and strengthening of the industry chain. The Sanya Central Business District will further refine its efforts, precisely extending, supplementing, and strengthening the chain along the upstream and downstream, striving to build a modern financial ecosystem with rich business formats, complete functions, and efficient collaboration. This will inject continuous and strong momentum into Hainan Free Trade Port's goal of becoming a financial hub for domestic and international dual circulation. A closed-door meeting was held concurrently, chaired by Guo Qiang, Dean of the Sanya Economic Research Institute. Participants included Fang Xinghai, former Vice Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission; Ye Yanfei, former First-Level Inspector of the State Financial Regulatory Commission; Wang Xiaoxing, Full-time Deputy Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Financial Work Committee; and Chen Jia, Assistant Director of the Sanya Central Business District Administration Bureau, who focused on discussing and offering suggestions on the practice and policy implementation of financial opening-up in the Free Trade Port.

Standing at the historical starting point of the full-island customs closure operation of the Hainan Free Trade Port, the convening of this conference is timely. The successful creation of the 100-billion-yuan-level modern financial industry cluster in the Sanya Central Business District, and the successful recognition of cross-border fund centralized operation centers such as Zijin International Holdings and Jianfa International Holdings, are not only important milestones in the development of Sanya's financial sector, but also a crucial new starting point for embarking on a new journey of financial opening and innovation after customs closure. In the future, Sanya will take this grand event as an important opportunity to firmly grasp the core direction of institutional opening, continue to deepen the practice of financial innovation in the Free Trade Port, fully release the synergistic effects of policies, further gather global financial elements, improve the industrial ecosystem, and make continuous breakthroughs in areas such as cross-border financial innovation, global wealth management, and the construction of high-end factor markets. It will strive to move forward towards the goal of higher-level industrial development, laying a solid financial foundation and contributing "Sanya's strength" to building the Hainan Free Trade Port into an important gateway leading the new era of opening up.