BEIJING — China will resolutely push forward the opening-up of the financial sector in an orderly manner as it is a rational choice in line with the needs of development, an official with the central bank said on Aug 25.

The country will promote the full implementation of the "pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list" management system for foreign investment, as part of efforts to create a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment, Liu Guoqiang, vice-governor of the People's Bank of China, told journalists at a press conference in Beijing.

Meanwhile, China will pay more attention to the prevention and control of financial risk, and take a more active role in global economic governance.

Liu noted that the country's financial opening-up is running at full tilt despite the changing international environment and coronavirus-induced shocks.

China has accelerated the pace of opening-up in recent years, said Liu, citing measures such as easing market access, abolition of the investment quota limits for Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) and Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (RQFII), and removing entry barriers in sectors including credit ratings and settlement.

The internationalization of the Chinese currency renminbi (RMB), or the yuan, has seen sound momentum, he said.

In the first half of 2020, RMB cross-border payments grew 36.7 percent year-on-year to reach 12.7 trillion yuan (about $1.84 trillion), while the RMB's share of global currency reserves was more than 2 percent in the first quarter of the year, nearly doubling its share in 2016, when RMB was included in the IMF's Special Drawing Rights basket of currencies, according to Liu.