At the meet-the-press session during the SMU China Forum, Professor Justin Lin, former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank, and Honorary Dean and Professor of the National School of Development at Peking University said that the current financial system in China does not meet the needs of the smallholdings farmers and small and medium sized manufacturing and service enterprises, which account for over 70% of China’s economic output. Hence, the next stage of financial reform should include promoting the growth and development of small and medium sized regional financial institutions, including banks. Professor Gan Li, Dean of the Research Institute of Economics and Management at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and a panellist at the SMU China Forum, shared that if China could solve its problem of income distribution, then its problem of insufficient consumption would also be solved. Thereupon, the Chinese economy would become one which is driven by consumption, rather than by investment or exports. When this happens, both China and the world would benefit.