June 1 — MOFCOM deputy minister and deputy chief trade negotiator Ling Ji met UK–China Trade Association chair Wu Sitian and representatives of UK-invested firms in China. Ling said 2026 marks the start of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan and signaled policy focus on developing new productive forces and expanding institutional opening, saying China–UK economic and trade cooperation faces an important opportunity window and urging UK firms to leverage service-sector innovation to add momentum. Wu said

Shanghai municipal government office issued a notice laying out measures to deepen Shanghai as a global asset management center. It directs authorities to authorize commodity futures settlement prices for use by additional overseas exchanges, support cross‑border delivery services, and boost the international transmission of commodity and gold benchmark prices to expand Shanghai Gold applications. The notice also calls for optimizing the Shanghai sovereign bond yield‑curve formation mechanism, wider adoption of the Shanghai interbank offered rate (SHIBOR) and deposit‑taking institutions’ bond repo rates as financial price indicators, and encouraging foreign investors to use onshore RMB bond indices and valuations as performance benchmarks and tracking targets.

Shanghai issued measures to deepen its global asset management centre: it will support listings and M&A of tech-heavy enterprises to raise the technology content and quality of equity assets; expand FTZ offshore bonds, Yulan bonds, Panda bonds and Sci‑tech bonds to broaden and balance bond supply; support eligible asset managers to participate in REITs and position Shanghai as the preferred national venue for REIT issuance and trading; and widen use of supply‑chain bills while accelerating development of real estate trusts, equity trusts and other alternative-asset supply.