The Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum 2024 released a series of achievements in Saturday's special session, including a new data-sharing platform, and annual reports on China's banking industry and financial street development. The platform, named Privacy Computing Platform for Financial Sector, is among the highlights of the session. Aiming to facilitate data sharing between institutions and industries, the platform has already engaged 11 major financial institutions by October, such as the Bank of China, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
The niche of the platform is that it can safeguard the privacies of transmitted data while functioning as a hub of data sharing, according to Yu Hejun, executive director of Beijing Financial Street Research Institute.
"The obstacles used to be huge in facilitating data sharing between banks and financial institutions. Now, with this platform, shared data can be used without being visible. That is to say, the data resources can be shared for use, while the privacy can be protected, thus significantly improving efficiency," said Yu.
An annual report on the development of Financial Street was also released during the session. According to the report, by the end of 2023, the capital of financial institutions quartered in the area scaled 151.2 trillion RMB (about 21.3 trillion U.S. dollars), up 10.2 percent year on year and accounting for one-third of China's total, marking a significant agglomeration effect.
Vital financial sector achievements released at Financial Street Forum Annual Conference
Vital financial sector achievements released at Financial Street Forum Annual Conference
Global leaders and environmental experts gathered in Cali, Colombia, on Sunday for the opening ceremony of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, a 12-day meeting aimed at advancing biodiversity conservation.
The meeting, which begins on Monday and runs through November 1, brings together more than 15,000 people from over 190 countries to push for action on biodiversity conservation, making it the most attended event of its kind since these conferences began in 1994, UN officials said.
The Colombian government, as the host, is pushing for this meeting to be the most inclusive in its history.
The goal of this meeting is for countries to take action to protect the world's flora and fauna, as experts warn that the extinction of species could begin to accelerate at an alarming rate due to climate crisis, deforestation and pollution.
To change or stop these threats against nature, COP16 this year seeks to engage a wider spectrum of society in discussions, such as indigenous groups and other communities that live in biodiversity hotspots, hoping that increased participation will translate into tangible conservation efforts.
The conference will also scrutinize past agreements, such as the Kunming-Montreal pact signed during the previous summit in Canada two years ago to address biodiversity loss and the restoration of ecosystems, as the vast majority of the 196 parties who signed that pact have yet to follow through with concrete action plans.
Colombia's President Gustavo Petro attended Sunday's opening ceremony, as did a delegation from China. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the gathering by video link.
Beyond opening remarks by high-level officials, attendees also took in artistic presentations meant to stir deeper consciousness of the human relationship with and dependence on the natural world.
Expectations are high for societal sectors to actively participate in wildlife and plant conservation, aligning with the COP16 theme of "Peace with Nature".
UN biodiversity conference opens in Colombia's Cali
