“The 12th Five Year Plan and the Role of Financial Reform in Transforming China’s Growth Model” is a prosaic title for the session at the IMF/World Bank annual meetings this week, given that it is a subject with potentially far-reaching ramifications.

As IMF economists highlighted in June, financial reform is both key to the rebalancing of China's economy, and urgent: "[The] potential combination-of rising inflationary pressures, already-high prices in the property market, and a weakening of direct monetary control-poses significant risks to financial and macroeconomic stability...The current system for financial intermediation continues to hold back rebalancing."