HONG KONG, July 11 (Reuters) - A Shanghai regulator said

it held a meeting this week for local government officials to

consider strategic responses to stablecoins and digital

currencies - a marked shift in tone for China where crypto

trading is banned.

The Thursday meeting was organised by the Shanghai

State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and

follows calls by experts and major companies in China to develop

a yuan-pegged stablecoin.

We need to have "greater sensitivity to emerging

technologies and enhanced research into digital currencies," He

Qing, the regulator's director told the meeting according to a

post on the body's official WeChat account.

Photos of the meeting showed some 60-70 attendees.

Shanghai is China's main international financial hub and

often leads pilot programmes for regulatory change.

Stablecoins - which are typically pegged to a fiat currency

and offer faster and cheaper transactions - have gained much

momentum worldwide. In the U.S., where the legal framework is

more developed, more and more companies such as Amazon ( AMZN )

and Walmart ( WMT ) are looking at launching stablecoins.

In China, e-commerce firm JD.com ( JD ) and fintech giant

Ant Group are urging the central bank to authorise

yuan-based stablecoins to counter the growing sway of U.S.

dollar-linked cryptocurrencies, sources have said.

The companies plan to apply for stablecoin licences in Hong

Kong, where stablecoin legislation is scheduled to take effect

on August 1.

A policy expert from Guotai Haitong Securities spoke at the

Shanghai meeting about the history, types and characteristics of

cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, and analysed global regulatory

frameworks and strategic approaches, the regulator's post said.

The expert explained the opportunities and challenges facing

stablecoins and offered policy suggestions for digital currency

development, the post added.

In addition to stablecoins, other digital currencies have

also been gaining in popularity, with bitcoin climbing to

an all-time high near $112,000 this week.

Any change in China may not come easily. The central bank's

governor Pan Gongsheng said last month that the boom in digital

currencies and stablecoins poses huge challenges to financial

regulation.

Mainland China banned cryptocurrency trading and mining in

2021 due to concerns about the stability of the financial

system.