(Xinhua)China has publicized plans to build Tianjin into a financial center in the north by introducing a range of reforms in the city's Binhai New Area.

Tianjin Mayor Dai Xianglong said that experiments will be made in reforming the scope of the banking business, ways of fund-raising and control of foreign exchange.

Measures will be part of the economic and administrative reform efforts to cultivate the Binhai New Area into a new engine of growth.

Earlier this month, the Binhai New Area, with an area of 2,270 square kilometers, was announced by the State Council as an experimental zone for comprehensive reforms.

It will be built into the third economic powerhouse in the country after Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province and the Pudong New Area in Shanghai.

While addressing a recent Sino-American seminar on finance held in Tianjin, Mayor Dai said as a way to reform the scope of banking businesses, a financial share-holding company with limited liabilities would be set up in the Binhai New Area to experiment with operating diverse financial businesses.

Under China's measures to rein in a growing number of bad loans, all banks are disconnected from trust and investment companies, and banking, securities and insurance businesses are operated independently.

"There is a bottleneck for operating banking, securities and insurance businesses independently," said Dai, who used to be governor of the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank.

Limited by the industry regulations, Chinese banks can not provide the diverse financial services desired by a growing number of conglomerates, whose business covers many fields.