China's Approach to Capital Flows Since 1978: Working Paper 2008-02

Since China began its pro-market reform in 1978, its management of capital flows has followed a cautious learning-by-doing approach, guided by the goal of propelling strong economic growth while minimizing risk to stability. Claiming that the country’s financial infrastructure is still not ready to deal with large swings of financial flows, China has frequently fine-tuned restrictions of portfolio flows but generally kept a tight rein of those flows. Meanwhile, promoting foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows (and outflows in recent years)—with the aim of accessing foreign management know-