Shanghai

TWO-AND-A-HALF years after Beijing pledged to let markets play a "decisive role" in the world's second-largest economy, financial reforms are gathering pace and more are on the way.

The need to generate growth in a slowing economy is partly behind the reforms, but so is the desire to integrate Chinese markets with their global counterparts in order to raise China's international status. "Both China's economic reality and its international ambition call for regulators to quicken the pace of reform," said Xiao Shijun, analyst at Guodu Securities in Beijing. "While helping to achieve an economic soft landing is the immediate purpose, raising China's global status is the long-term goal."