BEIJING: The Chinese Ministry of Finance hosted the “National Governance and Comprehensive Performance-Based Budget Management in the New Era” global symposium here on 19th and 20th September.
Daniyal Aziz, who had previously won a presidential award for his work on designing and implementing Pakistan’s provincial inter-governmental finance system and led the taxation and fiscal management research project for South Asia on behalf of IDRC Canada, was the only economist nominated from Pakistan to speak at the forum, says a press release.
The Chinese minister of finance gave the keynote speech and the other speakers from China included the heads of the co-organizers The China Development Research Foundation, The Chinese Academy for Fiscal Sciences and The Development Research Center of the State Council.
The symposium was also attended by the top professionals of the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, The Asian Development Bank, The OECD as well as professors and heads of audit and finance department from Australia, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands as well as Chinese Universities and think tanks.
The symposium focused on international best practices as an important tool for governments to respond to fiscal pressures and promote transformation of government functions related to finance.
The development of new technologies such a big data and cloud computing new reform experiences and good practices are emerging and were taken stock of for adaptation and learning.
In 2018, China announced to fully implement budget performance management and since then has issued a series of documents to support the reform at the central and local levels. Embarking on a long-term process of budget and finance reform the Chinese ministry of finance had gathered top professionals in the field to share experiences and learn for each other.
Daniyal Aziz explained the experience of intergovernmental finance reform and international best practices for advancing budget performance management. China is one of the most financially devolved countries in the world expending 85 percent of government budgets through local governments.