Chongqing-A number of financial experts conducted in-depth discussions for ways of southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality's building into an international consumption center city Monday night.

The CCI-FS Riverside Discussion- Consumer Finance, A Catalyst for Building International Consumption Center is held in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality on November 22, 2021. (iChongqing/ Wang Yiling)

Participants joined online and offline for keynote speeches and a roundtable forum held on November 22. "It's fair to say that international consumer centers should attract a certain scale of international consumers." Yang Zaiping, founding secretary-general of the Asian Financial Cooperation Association. Yang believes that product quality is a must for Chongqing to become the origin and distribution center of internationally renowned brands. Meanwhile, logistics, commerce, foreign trade, and other supporting facilities are available. In addition, marketing is necessary to improve international consumers awareness.

Zeng Gang, deputy director of the National Institution for Finance & Development and the Shanghai Institution for Finance & Development Director, said that digitalization and online development are noticeable when developing consumer finance. The development of consumer finance primarily relied on the intervention of financial technology, which has also changed the basic model of consumer finance. The scenario-based, ecological, and platform-based model has become a trend.

Liu Feng, the chief economist at China Galaxy Securities, said that it's an arduous task to build an international consumption center city in the epidemic context. Capability, expectation, and convenience constitute three conditions for consumption. Liu told iChongqing reporters that soft power had been a key element for an international consumption center.

Banks need to enrich their product lines specific to financial products and provide financial products that match the diverse consumer needs, according to  Zhao Zhongbin, president of the Bank of China Chongqing Branch.

The CCI-FS Riverside Discussion- Consumer Finance, A Catalyst for Building International Consumption Center was organized by Chongqing Yuzhong District People's Government, Chongqing Local Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, and Chongqing Branch of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Chongqing was among the first batch of five Chinese cities approved to blaze a path of fostering an international consumption center this July. And according to a plan issued recently, by 2025, Chongqing's total retail sales of social consumer goods will exceed 1.55 trillion yuan (about 240 billion U.S. dollars), and its online retail sales will exceed 200 billion yuan. In addition, two world-class and ten high-quality commercial circles, 100 famous streets and towns with unique local characteristics, and several clusters for the integrated development of business, culture, tourism, and sports will be built.