The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) officially went into operation. On April 28, 2003, the CBRC was set up in Beijing. The CBRC was designed to supervise and administer in a unified manner banks, financial assets management companies, trust and investment companies, and other depository financial institutions, so as to ensure the lawful and sound operation of the banking industry.

Money supply registered rapid increase. By the end of 2003, the money supply of broad sense (M2) was 22,122.3 billion yuan, up 19.6 percent year on year, or 2.8 percentage points higher than the previous year's growth; money supply of narrow sense (M1) was 8,411.9 billion yuan, up 18.7 percent, or 1.9 percentage points higher. The cash in circulation (M0) amounted to 1,974.6 billion yuan, up 14.3 percent, or 4.2 percentage points higher.

Savings deposits and loans of financial institutions increased by a large margin. The balance of savings deposits in RMB and in foreign currencies in all financial institutions at the end of 2003 totaled 22,036.4 billion yuan, up 20.2 percent as compared with the year-end figure of 2002. The balance of loans in the RMB and in foreign currencies in various forms in all financial institutions reached 16,977.1 billion yuan, up 21.4 percent. The structure of loans continued to improve. The balance of loans in the RMB in rural credit cooperatives stood at 1,697.9 billion yuan, an increase of 318.6 billion yuan. The balance of consumption loans in the RMB totaled 1,573.6 billion yuan, an increase of 509.1 billion yuan, of which, the balance of loans for housing were 1,178 billion yuan, an increase of 352.8 billion yuan.

Non-performing loans (NPLs) by financial institutions declined. The total volume of NPLs of major financial institutions in the banking sector, as was indicated by statistics of five-category classification, was 2.44 trillion yuan at the end of 2003, 190.6 billion yuan less than at the beginning of the year. The proportion of NPLs was 17.8 percent, 5.32 percentage points lower than at the beginning of the year.

Stock markets developed steadily. In 2003, funds raised through stock issue and rights issue totaled 135.8 billion yuan, an increase of 39.6 billion yuan over the previous year. The A-share market witnessed 97 stock issues (including additional issues and convertible bonds) and 24 rights issues, raising 82 billion yuan of funds, an increase of 4 billion yuan over 2002. The B- and H-share markets saw a total of 24 stock issues, raising 53.7 billion yuan of funds, an increase of 35.5 billion yuan. The number of domestically listed companies (A and B shares) rose from 1,224 at the end of 2002 to 1,287 at the end of 2003, with market capitalization of 4,257.8 billion yuan, up 11 percent.

Rapid progress was registered in insurance. In 2003, the premium of domestic and foreign insurance companies totaled 388 billion yuan, up 27.1 percent over the previous year. Of this total, the premium of life insurance was 266.9 billion yuan, that of health and unforeseen accident insurance was 34.2 billion yuan, and that of property insurance was 86.9 billion yuan. The insurance companies paid an indemnity of 84.1 billion yuan as reparations in insurance programs, of which the indemnity of life insurance was 26.4 billion yuan, and that of health and unforeseen accident insurance was 10.1 billion yuan. Another 47.6 billion yuan was paid as reparations in property insurance programs.

There were 18 cities open to foreign insurance companies. On December 11, 2003, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) decided to add five more cities—Fuzhou and Xiamen in Fujian Province, Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, Shenyang in Liaoning Province and Wuhan in Hubei Province—to the list of cities open to foreign insurance companies. Prior to that, Chengdu, Chongqing, Beijing, Tianjin, Suzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dalian, Foshan, Dongguan, Jiangmen and Haikou had been opened to foreign insurance companies.

The 36th foreign insurance company came to China. On June 16, 2003, the CIRC approved Groupama of France to set up branches for property insurance business in China. By then, 36 foreign insurance companies had set up 57 business offices in China (including those under preparations). Following its WTO accession, China fulfilled its commitments on opening its insurance sector in terms of market entry, geographical location and business scope.