The Draft Of The Futures Law Officially Enters The First Reading: High Level Laws And Regulations Optimize The Market Ecology And Promote The High-Quality Opening Of Futures Market To The Outside World

This week, the draft of the futures law was submitted to the 28th meeting of the 13th NPC Standing Committee for the first time. This is also the first time that China has made special legislation to regulate and promote the healthy development of the futures market.

In response to the news that the futures law has been submitted for deliberation, Zang Tiewei, spokesman of the legal work committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said that in recent years, China's futures market has achieved sustained, healthy and stable development. The total trading volume of commodity futures ranked first in the world for 11 consecutive years, and financial futures and derivatives such as stock index futures, treasury bond futures, stock options and so on also developed vigorously.

The formulation and promulgation of a special futures law will give better play to the functions of the futures market, which is of great significance to further activate the circulation of commodities, promote the market-oriented allocation of factor resources, stabilize the production and operation of enterprises, promote the upgrading of related industries, and maintain the national financial security.

Futures legal construction enters a new stage

Since the beginning of 1990s, the domestic futures market has developed for more than 30 years.

According to the data released by China Futures Association, in 2020, the unilateral trading volume and turnover of domestic futures market will be 6.153 billion hands and 437.53 trillion yuan respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 55.29% and 50.56%. Among them, the trading volume of Commodity Futures (excluding options) was 5.929 billion, ranking first in the world. The total assets of related futures companies will reach 984.825 billion yuan by the end of 2020.

However, such a huge market has been lack of high-level regulations. At present, the domestic futures market mainly relies on the "Regulations on the administration of futures trading" issued by the State Council and the departmental rules, normative documents and self regulatory management rules issued by the CSRC.

Luo Xufeng, chairman of Nanhua futures, said that in the early stage, the commodity industry has always adopted the form of administrative regulations and industry self-discipline to regulate and restrict the behavior of the market, the company and employees. However, with the high-quality development of economy, more and more enterprises and individual investors conduct risk hedging, resource allocation and hedging through the futures market. As a derivative tool, futures play an increasingly important role in all aspects of social economy. The futures market has entered a new historical stage which needs to be regulated by laws and regulations, and the importance of the market has been greatly improved.

As for the specific content of the futures law, some domestic lawyers who have been engaged in futures related litigation for a long time told the reporter of the 21st century economic news that the future Futures Law may draw lessons from the existing securities law in terms of punishment for illegal acts such as insider trading and market manipulation.

Legal support for market opening up

Luo Xufeng said that legislation can regulate and restrict some unclear areas in the futures market, so that more investors can safely participate in the market transactions. This creates a fair and orderly business environment for foreign investors to enter the Chinese market to carry out futures business, and creates more favorable conditions for China's opening up.

According to industry insiders, at present, it is an important feature of international commodity trade to take the prices of major futures markets as trading benchmark. As the world's second largest economy, China has become the world's largest commodity trading country and a major participant in the global commodity market. China's consumption of steel, copper, aluminum, iron ore and other large raw materials accounts for about half of the world; Crude oil consumption accounts for 1 / 7 of the world's total, and is the world's largest crude oil importer, with a foreign dependence of more than 70%. However, China's futures market is dominated by domestic traders, and the prices formed mainly reflect the supply and demand situation of domestic market, and lack of international influence and discourse power of international pricing.

Therefore, in recent years, China's futures market is striving to build a two-way opening-up situation. Foreign traders are introduced into specific varieties such as crude oil, iron ore and PTA. Qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) and RMB qualified foreign institutional investors (rqfii) are allowed to participate in domestic commodity futures, financial futures and options trading, and the restrictions on foreign shares of futures companies are lifted. In addition, the three domestic commodity futures trading venues have been registered and developed overseas in accordance with the law“ However, at present, China's regulations for adjusting the futures market are not high. The regulations on the administration of futures trading mainly regulate domestic futures trading and lack of arrangements for the cross-border regulatory system involved in the opening up of the market. Therefore, there are still doubts about the participation of foreign institutional traders in China's futures market. " Some futures people close to the regulatory level said that the absence of the futures law has affected the effect of the opening up of China's futures market and restricted the promotion of the international competitiveness of the futures market. It is imperative to provide legal support for the opening up of China's futures market.

Han Qian, a professor at Xiamen University's School of economics, also pointed out that if the futures law is finally introduced successfully, it will greatly enhance the level of legalization of China's futures market, eliminate the uncertainty of many policies and regulations, improve the transparency of market governance, and help to enhance the confidence of foreign institutions in China's futures market.

On the whole, after the promulgation of the futures law, it is expected to build the interconnection of domestic and foreign futures markets from the two aspects of "bringing in" and "going out", forming a new development pattern of mutual promotion of domestic and international dual circulation, and further promoting the high-quality opening up of China's futures market.

?