Since the beginning of 2017, to implement the reform requirements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on pushing forward administration streamlining and power delegation, combination of deregulation and regulation, and optimization of services, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has been committed to legislation in key areas and documents streamlining. Based on this, to facilitate public enquiry and application, the SAFE then updated the Catalogue of Major Existing Laws and Regulations in Effect on Foreign Exchange Administration ("Catalogue") and released it at its official website.

The upgraded Catalogue contains 223 main laws and regulations on foreign exchange administration released as of December 31, 2017, which fall into eight categories including general foreign exchange administration, foreign exchange administration under the current account, foreign exchange administration under the capital account, regulation of the foreign exchange business of financial institutions, the RMB exchange rate and the foreign exchange market, balance-of-payments and foreign exchange statistics, foreign exchange inspections and application of the laws and regulations, and the scientific administration of foreign exchange, and several sub-categories by specific business type. The extra documents added to the Catalogue covers various topics, such as foreign exchange sales and settlement for foreign people, improvement of declaration of personal foreign exchange information, foreign exchange administration for financial leasing, foreign exchange administration for overseas loans under domestic guarantees, foreign exchange administration for overseas deals with bank cards, regulating large-sum overseas cash withdrawals with bank cards, rules on business reviews for the declaration of balance of payments statistics via banks, verification rules for external financial assets and liabilities and trading statistics, guidance on statistics collection regarding external financial assets and liabilities and trading, and unified social credit code applicable to the foreign exchange business system.

Going forward, the SAFE will carefully implement the work arrangements by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, deepen the foreign exchange administration reform, deepen legislation and document streamlining in key areas, and enhance trade and investment facilitation to serve the real economy.