China will set its priorities for finance reform for the next five years at a top-level party conclave next week expected to focus on rural banking and an enhanced role for the country’s largest financial holding company.

The so-called finance work committee meeting, to be chaired by Wen Jiabao, the premier, has been held twice before – in 1997 and 2002 – and in both cases resulted in substantial and far-reaching policy changes.