Financial empowerment elevates Shanxi as new inland opening-up hub

This year, the Shanxi branch of the People's Bank of China has focused on establishing payment service demonstration zones to integrate financial services with urban development and industrial transformation. The initiative aims to provide robust financial support for Shanxi's efforts to become a new inland hub for opening-up.

The province has established eight provincial-level and 13 municipal-level payment service demonstration zones. These zones support 67,000 entities that accept foreign card payments, creating a multi-tiered payment service system that covers key transportation hubs, major tourist attractions, and central business districts across the province.

These demonstration zones offer specialized, multilingual, one-stop payment services for domestic and international tourists, including currency exchange, foreign card cash withdrawals, payment service consultations, and assistance with mobile payment setups. From January to July this year, Shanxi handled 656,000 payment transactions by foreign visitors, amounting to 110 million yuan ($16.37 million), marking year-on-year growth of 74.5 percent and 61.3 percent, respectively.

Additionally, the Shanxi Bureau of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange has steadily advanced high-level opening-up in the foreign exchange sector, enhancing cross-border trade and investment facilitation to support Shanxi's high-quality economic development.

Shanxi launched a pilot program for high-level opening-up in cross-border trade on Aug 7, thanks to collaboration among banks, enterprises, and regulatory bodies. Currently, 12 banks and 113 high-quality enterprises are participating in the pilot, unleashing the potential of a "more trustworthy, more convenient" foreign exchange service environment.