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NEW YORK- China has made a couple of positive steps in developing its financial sector and it will build up a free and open capital market eventually, Paul Gruenwald, Standard & Poor's chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region said on Monday.

In a meeting held by the Foreign Press Center in New York, Gruenwald listed several developments China had made in integrating its financial sector to the global financial system: the rising foreign debt flows, the growing outward foreign direct investment and the gradual capital account opening.

Gruenwald said that although China is the No 1 trading economy in the world, its financial sector lags behind that of the United States and other advanced economies. However, China has used its "late-mover advantage" to learn from the policy missteps of other countries.

In his recent report titled "Is China Catching the US", Gruenwald expressed similar views.

"The emerging market landscape is littered with examples of countries that opened up their financial markets too soon, too quickly, or with the wrong sequencing, which led to a combination of external and banking crises and, typically, an approach to the IMF for funding," said Gruenwald in the report.

"China's gradual capital account opening was the right strategy and has served the country well," he added.

He also argued that the usage of the Chinese yuan in international payments has surged in recent years, showing the progress China has made in connecting to the other parts of the world financially.