Chinese Banks Saw Value of Bad Loans Rise Last Year, Annual Reports Show
BEIJING | By Wu Hongyuran via Caixin | Executive at large bank says figure may have increased by another 60 billion yuan over the first two months of the year.
China
China: shadow finance for the masses
Iris Mir | Tight control of capital accounts has pushed China to a financial deadlock. Chinese savers are looking to new online investment platforms amid a lack of substantial wealth management options. Last year China’s Internet payment platform launched the online investment platform Yu’e Bao to offer its users the possibility of investing the idle money on their Alipay accounts and getting much higher benefits than any traditional bank. More than 43.03 million people already enjoy its advantageous financial products. The opportunities of this business model are huge and many other Chinese internet giants are following suit.
Achtung: German businessmen express doubts on growth and labor reforms
BERLIN | By Alberto Lozano | German Council of economic experts (‘the Five Wise Men’) upgraded its forecast for the country’s GDP growth in 2014 to 1.9 percent from its previous expectation of 1.6 percent in November last year. However, the last Ifo’s data show that global events like Crimea crisis and a slowing Chinese GDP growth can badly impact the euro zone’s engine.
China: The mirage of the ‘new economy’
SHANGHAI | By Andy Xie via Caixin | The current Internet boom and the new economy, centered around social networking, e-commerce and online gaming, has not produced a significant productivity boost for the economy and likely will not in the future. The boom is mostly about redistributing existing demand from offline to online.
Today’s Talk Of The Market In Spain
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | It could be a big deal. The Spanish government has to evaluate a comprehensive report on the tax system reforms handed by an experts’ comittee “We have spared no one,” they’ve said. Will this really boost simplicity and efficiency? Market makers await further details about where the government stands on each proposal. Besides, focus remains in Ukraine ans the polemic referendum in Crimea, and in China, whose PM announced that more defaults are coming.
China: Omnipresent Scarcity
China is reaching a crucial point in which both the Communist Party and the citizens must define what they want to be and in which direction they want to move. The human costs of three decades of rampant growth are huge and the country is facing pressing challenges such as environmental pollution, deep social inequalities and weak employment opportunities. It may be time for China to start figuring out the puzzle of allocating resources in a country of 1.3 billion people.
China: Eyes on the Prize
BEIJING | By Andy Xie via Caixin | Poor economic data in China will make the short-sighted howl, but policymakers know it is really a sign of rebalancing – and raising per capita incomes.
Ending the Nightmare of Private Sector ‘Crime’ in China
BEIJING | Op-ed by Wang Yong via Caixin | Private business owners in China are, out of desperation, breaking laws under a legal system that China must reform. An entrepreneur who has no basic rights guaranteed may fawn on political elites because this is probably the only way to guarantee personal safety. We could call that the private sector’s “crime of necessity.”
Want Chinese Tourists? Be Friendly to Them
MILAN | By Mariangela Pira via Caixin | From providing water kettles in hotels to streamlining visa application procedures, European countries can do more to make Chinese tourists visiting easier.
Haier’s Lesson for China
Iris Mir |Chinese brand Haier went from a disastrous inefficient brand to the world’s biggest household appliances manufacturer thanks to its CEO, Zhang Ruimin, innovative entrepreneurial thinking. The ideal scenario for China would be that many local brands could achieve Haier’s reputation and capacity for innovation. And thus they’d become Ambassadors of a new made in China, most sophisticated and exclusive. A substantial consolidation of domestic demand and the development of a new industrial structure may be paving the way for this dramatic transition to happen.