7. Reform and Development of the Banking Industry

Since the beginning of the reform and opening-up policy, China’s banking industry has largely followed the process of reforming the socialist economic system, adapting to the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, and gradually achieving the goals of banking reform. Following the approach of separating allocation and management of funds, the first step was to separate the Agricultural Bank of China(ABC), Bank of China(BOC), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China from the People’s Bank of China(ICBC), and the China Construction Bank(CCB) from the Ministry of Finance. These four state-owned specialized banks underwent commercialization reforms and gradually transformed into four state-owned commercial banks.