Shanghai is planning to transform Lingang Special Area into an emerging financial hub by 2025.

This economic space will include smart finance, integration and collaborative governance, as per an action plan issued on Monday by the Management Committee of Lingang.

According to the governor of the People’s Bank of China Shanghai Branch, Jin Penghui, Lingang houses numerous emerging industries that require financial products and services with exclusive features and more robust suitability. The governor added that speeding up the development of emerging industries will lead to key economic support and insight into the trend of future development.

“The plan includes new financial products, such as shipping derivatives, new financial platforms, including an international financial asset trading platform, and new rules and regulations to pilot projects on cross-border flow of financial data,” Jin stated. “Many of these are innovative reforms and need the collaboration of different departments and agencies.”

In order to support new trade, the plan states the financial industry needs to promote the development of offshore trade, progress with the construction of key platforms and bolster the facilitation of receipts and payments.

Furthermore, in regard to cross-border finance, Lingang must develop the construction of a global financial asset trading platform and boost the foreign and domestic limited partners regimes and projects to facilitate high-level cross-border trade and investment. Banks should also receive support to develop their offshore businesses and increase free-trade non-resident accounts.

Additionally, green finance will also take centre stage, with plans to bolster the green financial product system, Shine News reports, providing support for green businesses and encouraging environmental, social and corporate governance information disclosure.

According to HSBC China's president and CEO Mark Wang, Lingang is a "hub linking offshore and onshore markets", which is of great importance to international banks, China Daily reports.