The 2022 Annual Conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) was held on April 20-22 at Boao, in China's Hainan province, under the theme of "The World in COVID-19 & Beyond: Working Together for Global Development and Shared Future". This year's Annual Conference focused on the post-pandemic world economic recovery and sustainable development; delegates contributed wisdom and reached a consensus for future development. Financing Inclusive Development Roundtable was held on April 22. After Perry WARJIYO, Governor of Bank Indonesia, G20 Presidency, and Lei Lu, Deputy Administrator, State Administration of Foreign Exchange delivered keynote speeches, two roundtable discussions were held: Session 1: Financial Inclusion and Inclusive Growth and Session 2: Digital, Green and Just Transition. As the moderator of Session 1, Duoguang Bei, President of Chinese Academy of Financial Inclusion (CAFI), discussed how to bridge the "digital gap" in financial services through the development of inclusive finance and digital finance, and the challenges of financial support for inclusive development, and other issues, with Ahmed M. SAEED, Vice-President (Operations 2) for East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Asian Development Bank, Alessandro TEIXEIRA, Professor of Tsinghua University, Former Special Economic Advisor to President of Brazil, Xiaohui Zhang, Dean, Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance, Yiding Xu, Executive Vice President, Agricultural Development Bank of China, Yunfeng Wang, Deputy Chairman, President and CEO, HSBC China, and Tamas HAJBA, Senior Advisor for China, Head of Beijing Office, OECD.

"The Chinese government has played a very important role in guiding financial inclusion, such as developing inclusive finance reform pilot zones, and in setting up financial service stations in 600,000 administrative villages nationwide to promote digital finance and fintech and offer the last-mile financial services that reached the long tail of the sector, i.e. lower-middle to lower class and poor people, that would otherwise be ignored by the traditional banking business. In addition to developing credit, China will pay more attention to inclusive insurance, financial inclusion infrastructure, protecting financial consumers’ rights and interests and building financial capacity, and improving the financial health of the whole society, to build an inclusive financial ecosystem and achieve high-quality development of financial inclusion."

——Duoguang Bei, President of Chinese Academy of Financial Inclusion (CAFI)

“The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been committed to financial inclusion, mainly with funds from some developed countries to support less developed countries. We aim to promote the integration of inclusive finance, digital finance, and green finance, to achieve a loan balance of US$100 billion in 10 years. To achieve such an ambitious goal, ADB has gradually built itself into an open infrastructure, working with many other multilateral platforms as a development financial institution.”

——Ahmed M. SAEED, Vice-President, Asian Development Bank

"Financial inclusion has always been marginalized in Africa and Latin America. In order to promote financial institutions to serve micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and disadvantaged groups, we have tried to establish policy banks, but found it difficult for small businesses and individuals who are not able to pay taxes in the informal economy to access financial services. Therefore,I suggest that in the future, we should further explore how to use technology to serve this group and improve financial inclusiveness."

——Alessandro Teixeira, Former Special Economic Advisor to President of Brazil

"How to bridge the 'digital gap' in financial services? We can do the following. First, optimize the policy support system. Second, further improve key areas and weak links in financial inclusion. Third, guide all kinds of financial institutions to engage in financial inclusion and increase financial supply."

——Xiaohui Zhang, Dean, Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance

"Financial support for inclusive development is promising. Taking the Agricultural Development Bank of China (ADBC) as an example, when it was established, the loan scale was 220 billion. Some 28 years later, our loan scale reached 7 trillion now. It has supported the development of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, and created the brands of poverty alleviation bank, food bank, green bank, and water conservancy bank."

——Yiding Xu, Executive Vice President, Agricultural Development Bank of China

"We worked closely with local governments during the COVID-19 pandemic and participated in their financial inclusion programs. At the same time, we also explored supply chain financing by serving some multinational clients in China and using the third-party data of these companies to extend our financial services to medium-sized and small enterprises."

——Yunfeng Wang, Deputy Chairman, President and CEO, HSBC China

"We need to improve the financial literacy of those who were denied services by the traditional financial system through multi-party cooperation. This is how we can ensure financial inclusiveness."

——Tamas Hajba, Senior Advisor for China, Head of Beijing Office, OECD

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