People's Bank of China, or the central bank, is to open its second headquarters in Shanghai, the country's financial hub in east China, on Wednesday, said an informed source Tuesday in Shanghai.

Senior officials of Shanghai's banking watchdog and some leading financial institutions have been invited to attend Wednesday's launching function.

The source said the second BOC headquarters is an institution at the vice-ministerial level. And Xiang Junbo, vice governor of the central bank, will take charge of the Shanghai headquarters, and some central bank's departments, whose businesses are closely related to the market, will move to the Shanghai headquarters.

The Shanghai Branch of the central bank will remain, and the new headquarters is separate from it, according to the source.

The central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in March 2005 that the Shanghai branch has long been held accountable more than BOC regional branch, since a lot of leading Chinese financial institutions, such as China's foreign exchange market, interbank lending market, gold market, diamond market as well as Shanghai Stock Exchange, are located in the municipality.

For the sake of improving its management further, Zhou once acknowledged, the central bank will possibly transfer some of its nationwide businesses, such as payment and liquidation as well as a consulting system for national credit information, to Shanghai and hence set up a big business department.

Source: Xinhua