Preventing Financial Risks

Preventing Financial Risks

The global economy faces an uncertain future. China also faces challenges to ensure steady economic development.Wei Jianing, Deputy Director of the Department of Macroeconomic Research of the Development Research Center of the State Council, shared his views withFinancial Newson how China will prevent financial risks and reform its financial system in 2012. Edited excerpts follow:

International crisis

The global financial crisis can be divided into several stages: From August 2008 to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 was the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis; after September 2008 it became the international financial crisis; and as of October 2009 when Greek sovereign debt crisis broke out, the crisis became a sovereign debt crisis. The question is:Is the European currency crisis now in a new stage? And what comes next?

We think the present U.S. and European sovereign debt crisis is the aftershock of the U.S. sub-prime crisis, and also the pre-shock that will bring future international financial market more turmoil and push the world economy into another recession. Recently Standard & Poor’s placed the European Union on its watch list, and some countries are preparing for the EU to balkanize, so we must be prepared for this crisis.

As for the euro crisis, I think we need to decide whether to come to the rescue or not.

In rescuing the EU, there are three methods: The European Central Bank issues banknotes to rescue the euro; the euro zone issues euro bonds; or it creates a Europe rescue fund. However, these methods are all dif fi cult to carry out and may trigger in fl ation.

If not rescued, three outcomes are possible: Southern European countries will leave the EU, which may lead to imported inflation; the euro zone breaks up and northern European countries issue new core currency,which may lead to sharp rises of the exchange rate and their economy may stagnate; or each country resumes its own currency, so that the currency of Germany, the European economic development engine, will appreciate sharply and export of German goods will be seriously affected, then debtor nations such as Greece and Spain will lose aid and collapse.

There is another choice, or the only way out for the euro, which is to advance a uniform fiscal policy and establish a uniform country, just like the United States that was established as a federal country hundreds of years ago. But the question of whether the public and politicians of various countries have enough consensus needs to be researched.

Averting risks

The Chinese economy faces three major risks:burst of real estate bubbles, risks of local government financing platforms and split of capital chains for private lending.

As for the burst of real estate bubbles, in 2009 the central bank revealed real estate loans accounted for 21 percent of the country’s newly increased loans, a relatively high portion. The question is whether the economy can achieve a soft landing after the bubbles burst. During the Great Depression in the United States, the real estate bubbles popped before stock market bubbles. Recently, during the sub-prime crisis,stock market bubbles were fi rst to go, followed by those of the real estate market.

If the government does not make proper adjustments before a bubble bursts but just props up the bubble with monetary policies,a new bubble will form and then further adjustments will be needed. If the real estate bubbles burst, will the economy see a hard landing? If this happens, it will de fi nitely infl uence the banks.

At the local level, since a large amount of loans local governments received from banks in 2008 and 2009 will be due, local governments need large money bags to repay the loans.The Central Government recently tightened its control of the real estate market, reducing local governments’ revenues from transferring land use right, which is a major source of income. In the meantime, commercial banks also lack incentives to grant new loans to local governments,because the interest rate for loans granted to local governments is 10 percent lower than the benchmark interest rate, while that for loans granted to enterprises now is 30-50 percent higher than the benchmark interest rate. As a result, it is hard for local governments to get new loans from banks or issue local bonds for fi nancing, thus increasing the risks of the local government fi nancing platform.

As for the problems of private lending,such as those I found in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province last September, I have the following judgments.

First, interest rates of private lending are too high, leading to split capital chains. The risks surrounding private lending are growing rapidly.

Second, since there is no insurance mechanism for private lending, once the capital chains split, it will cause chain reactions, spreading to other regions and probably affecting legitimate fi nancial institutions, because some private lending capital is borrowed from banks and then fi nds its way to private lenders. Through investigations we have found that the present situation is similar to the situation in 1993, when the fi nancial market was in disorder. The difference is in 1993 the disorder was seen in legitimate fi nancial institutions, while at present, the disorder is in illegal financial institutions. I think we need a better understanding of the problem.

Positively there is demand and supply for private lending and it has made contributions to economic growth, but negatively we should see the risks and prevent anyone from using the risks to force the central bank to loosen the monetary policy.

The Chinese economy faces three major risks: burst of real estate bubbles, risks of local government financing platforms and split of capital chains for private lending

Reform tasks

To get things in order and advance fi nancial reform, we need to complete three tasks.

First, the interest rate should be marketoriented to improve the efficiency of market resource allocation. A market-oriented interest rate is conducive to compressing the space for private lending and playing the role of the fi nancial market in allocating economic resources and re fl ecting the diversity and difference of fi nancial products and fi nancial services. Market-oriented interest rates can also reflect the demand of macro-control and help improve the functions of the monetary policy.

Second, capital involved in private lending should be guided to legitimate financial institutions to diversify the functions and scales of fi nancial institutions.

Third, construction of sound fi nancial security networks should be accelerated. There are three core issues concerning financial security networks: prudent regulators, lender of last resort and the fi nal investor protection mechanism.

The relationship between central and local governments in financial supervision should be straightened out, and the Central Government shall authorize the fi nancial work of fi ces of local governments to supervise micro and small local fi nancial institutions, with the aim of enhancing effective supervision.

The lender of last resort should strengthen the independence of the central bank and regulate the decision-making mechanism of the monetary policy. This will be beneficial to China. Why? After the Plaza Accord in 1985, an agreement between the governments of France, West Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom to depreciate the U.S. dollar in relation to the Japanese yen and Deutsche mark by intervening in currency markets, both the Japanese yen and Deutsche mark appreciated. However, there was bubble economy only in Japan, because Japan did not raise the interest rate with pressure from the United States, leading to the bubble economy.On the contrary, despite the pressure from the United States, Germany still raised the interest rate and avoided a bubble economy.Therefore independence of the central bank is quite conducive to protecting national interest.

As for the investor protection mechanism,we have established an insurance protection fund and still lack a deposit insurance mechanism,hence we should set up a deposit insurance mechanism to prevent possible risks.

Why is the deposit insurance mechanism conducive to solving the financing difficulty of small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs)? Because small and medium-sized banks should be vigorously developed to solve the financing difficulty of SMEs, but without a deposit insurance mechanism, depositors are more willing to save their money into large banks, leaving small and mediumsized banks in an unfavorable position.Moreover, if the interest rate is market-oriented, there will be losers in the competition,and an exit mechanism is needed for those losers. However, without a deposit insurance mechanism, the losers have no way of getting out. Therefore the deposit insurance helps to prevent both impacts of the financial crisis and public panics.

POSSIBLE BUBBLE BURST: Workers are fi xing lamps near a commercial housing complex