TIANJIN: Tianjin will strengthen financial reform and innovation this year and launch two major development funds for the shipping and aviation sectors, in line with it being one of the test beds for national reform, the municipality's mayor said yesterday.

"We will deepen our comprehensive reform in an all-around manner, facilitating reform and innovation within the financial sector. We plan to set up shipping and aviation funds," Mayor Huang Xingguo said in his address to the second session of the 15th municipal people's congress.

To that effect, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, has approved Tianjin's application to raise a 20-billion-yuan ($2.93 billion) shipping industrial fund.