A more specific agenda reported by the 21st Century Business Herald included discussions on the shareholders reform of the Agricultural Bank of China, the last of the "Big-four" state-owned banks to be listed on the stock exchange, the transformation of the State Development Bank from a policy bank into a commercial one and following the deposit insurance system of western countries. The newspaper also reported that the conference would be held on January 19 and 20.

Qin Chijiang, secretary-general of the China Financial Institute, told the newspaper that the meeting would make breakthroughs in rural financial reforms to alleviate the capital shortfall in the countryside.

After the first national financial work conference was convened in 1997, the year a financial crisis swept through Southeast Asia, China adopted proactive fiscal and financial policies, set up the Insurance Regulatory Commission and instituted reforms of the "Big four" banks: the Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China.

The second national financial work conference opened in 2002, signaling the establishment of the Banking Regulatory Commission, and the fiscal and financial policies were shifted to "prudent".

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