On March 16, 2019, the Release of County-level Digital Inclusive Finance Index and Inclusive Finance Development Forum was held in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province. The forum was jointly held by the Institute of Chinese Financial Studies of SWUFE (ICFS) and the People's Government of Beichuan County, organized by ICFS and Beichuan County Inclusive Finance Research Center, and co-sponsored by People's Bank of China, Mianyang Branch. This forum, with the theme of "Inclusive Finance & Technology Finance", aims to collect the practical experience and research results of government departments, financial institutions, and scholars of colleges and universities, explore the establishment of county digital inclusive finance evaluation system, and jointly summarize and explore the reality and future of inclusive finance in China's counties.

More than 200 people attended the forum, including leaders, representatives of financial institutions, experts and scholars from colleges and universities. They are YIN Youping, Deputy Director of the Financial Consumer Protection Bureau of the People's Bank of China (PBC); LI You, Deputy Governor of Chengdu Branch of the PBC; WANG Lin, Deputy Director of Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Financial Work; YANG Xuening, Member of the Standing Committee and Vice Mayor of Mianyang Municipal Party Committee; WEI Yong, Deputy Secretary-General of Mianyang Municipal People's Government; LAI Jun, Secretary of Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County Party Committee. Representatives from financial institutions included WANG Tao, Deputy President of Sichuan Branch of ICBC; LI Silin, Assistant President of Sichuan Branch of ICBC and President of ICBC, Mianyang Branch; LIN Qing, Vice President of Sichuan Branch of Agricultural Bank of China; WANG Ting, Vice Chairman of Sichuan Rural Credit Cooperatives as well as BAI Chengyu, Executive Vice President of China Association of Microfinance (CAM). Scholars are Prof. XIONG Deping, Dean of School of Finance of Yunnan University of Finance and Economics; Prof. HE Guangwen, Director of Center for Rural Finance & Investment Research of Agricultural University of China; XING Yan, Associate Researcher of China Institute of Finance and Capital Markets of China Securities Regulatory Commission; Prof. YIN Qingshuang, Vice President of SWUFE; Prof. ZENG Kanglin, Honorary Director of ICFS and Prof. LIU Xiliang of ICFS.

In his speech, Vice President of SWUFE, YIN Qingshuang affirmed the cooperation mode of ICFS, Beichuan County People's Government and Mianyang Branch of the PBC, introduced the background of releasing the digital inclusive finance index, and sincerely hoped that this release would play an active role in improving China's inclusive financial evaluation index system and promoting the development of digital inclusive finance use. Combining with this year's government work report, Prof. ZENG Kanglin of ICFS proposed that the core of inclusive finance is people's livelihood, and that inclusion means fairness and justice. ZENG called on everyone to focus on inclusive finance and jointly promote its development. YIN Youping showed the efforts made by the PBC in developing inclusive finance, put forward the challenges encountered in the development of digital inclusive finance in the new era, and called on people to jointly create a safe and effective inclusive financial development platform. From the perspective of "Local Financial Development and Inclusive Finance" and the development of 5G technology, WANG Lin put forward some thoughts on the development of inclusive finance.

Then, Prof. LIU Xiliang of ICFS analyzed the institutionalism and welfarism of inclusive finance in his keynote speech. He believed that the development of inclusive finance should be focused on advantageous industries and emerging industries. Even though risks should be cautioned and needs to strengthen supervision, the development of inclusive finance is more important than supervision, and supervised work should be matched with its development. Prof. XIONG Deping made analyses on several theoretical problems in the development of inclusive finance from three aspects, including theoretical connotation, implementation mechanism, and model innovation. BAI Chengyu delivered a speech on the developing difficulties in inclusive finance and digital finance, cooperative finance as well as mutual aid development of rural funds, and further analyzed the principles and institutional advantages of the development of cooperative finance.

On behalf of the research team, Prof. WANG Qing, Director of ICFS, released the "County-level Digital Inclusive Finance Index", interpreting the index release from four aspects: compilation ideas, index system composition, index trial calculation results, and improvement suggestions. The index is the first systematic, reproducible, and popularized county-level digital inclusive financial evaluation system in China. Several leaders of Sichuan province had witnessed this index release.

In the afternoon, the two round table forums were respectively themed by "Basic Theory, Practical Performance and Basic Experience of Inclusive Finance" and "Development Strategy, Risk and Response of Digital Inclusive Finance in the New Era". Experts and scholars had conducted in-depth discussions on two major themes and reached some consensus. First, actively explore the integration and development of Inclusive Finance, Internet Finance, and Financial Technology, so as to study the development model of Digital Inclusive Finance applicable to counties in China; Second, summarize and refine the experience and practice of various agricultural related financial institutions in the practice of inclusive finance, so as to promote its continuous improvement in China’s counties, and contribute more financial power to China's overall poverty alleviation and rural revitalization.

The County-level Digital Inclusive Finance Index is another important move of ICFS to deal with China's financial major practical problems, and it will be released every year.