Jul 28th, 2010
A lot of people have asked me to write about the recently “leaked” CBRC report on dodgy local government debt. Here is what the article in Monday’s Bloomberg had to say about it (and note especially that delicious second paragraph): Mainland banks may struggle to recoup about 23 per cent of the 7.7 trillion yuan [...]
Jul 4th, 2010
Just three days after returning to Beijing from New York, I had to leave again, this time to a series of conferences in Torino, Italy, so it is hard to do much writing for my blog, especially since I won’t spend my free time in the hotel when there is so damned much food out [...]
Apr 6th, 2010
Since this is a very long post, it may make sense first to provide a quick summary of what I am going to argue. As I have discussed often in earlier posts, pessimists are starting to worry about excessive debt levels in China, about which they are very right to worry, and many are predicting [...]
Nov 26th, 2009
The stock market had a bad day today, with the SSE Composite down 3.62%, mainly on rumors that banks will be seeking to raise equity capital next year in response to their loan surge this year. On Tuesday Bloomberg reported that the five largest banks were supposed to have submitted plans to regulators for raising [...]
Oct 16th, 2009
The release of September trade data earlier this week was pretty interesting, although because of two or three extra working days last month, plus the very big holiday at the beginning of October which might have pushed activity into September, some of the comparisons are misleading. Exports were down 15.2% year-on-year, better than the expected [...]
As Beijing slowly unlocks from its 60th anniversary celebrations – the streets are still relatively empty but more and more people are going out, although my local Starbucks still hasn’t reopened, forcing me to go elsewhere for my hardcore caffeine fix – a lot is still going on in the rest of the world. Both [...]
Three weeks ago China Daily published a pretty funny article about a recent survey on credibility that had taken place in China. According to the article, At a time when shamelessness is pervasive, we are often at loss as to who can be trusted. The five most trustworthy groups, according to a survey by the [...]
Jul 24th, 2009
Although I am often surprised by how eagerly foreign commentators have embraced the Chinese fiscal stimulus story and see it as a great, shining success, I am happy to say, mercifully, that in China there is a lot more skepticism. There seems to be a serious debate among Chinese policymakers over the stimulus package. The [...]
I don’t have time to do a long entry today, but in my June 30 entry I marveled at the huge explosion in new lending, and claimed that credible rumors suggested that total new loans for June would be an astonishing RMB 1.2 trillion. That would bring total new lending for 2009 to RMB 7.06 [...]
“China’s overall surge in credit in the first half of 2009,” an article in yesterday’s People’s Daily assures us, “is normal and healthy; however problems still exist in the structure, quality and flow of credit. China should continue to optimize credit structure and guard against potential risks.” Credible rumors suggest that new loans in June [...]