Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Poll: Investors Predict China Bank Crisis

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-07/poll-investors-predict-china-bank-crisis.html
 
 
Poll: Investors Predict China Bank Crisis
 
By David J. Lynch - Dec 8, 2011 6:13 AM GMT+0100
 
Most global investors predict China will face a banking crisis within 
the next five years, paring their appetite for the nation’s shares and 
eroding confidence in its leadership, a Bloomberg Global Poll indicated.
Sixty-one percent of respondents said they anticipate a crash in the 
financial industry by late 2016, and only 10 percent were confident 
China’s banks will escape trouble, according to the quarterly poll of 
1,097 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers 
conducted Dec. 5-6.
Evidence of slowing growth in China -- including the weakest 
manufacturing performance in more than two years, falling home sales and 
ebbing export growth -- has stoked concern that non-performing loans 
will climb in the world’s second-largest economy. The risk is a legacy 
of a record 17.6 trillion-yuan ($2.8 trillion) lending boom unleashed by 
Premier Wen Jiabao in 2009-2010 amid the global recession.
“The deep-seated misallocation of resources, particularly in the real 
estate and banking sectors, will lead to a combination of political and 
economic instability,” says Lance Depew, managing director of UPI 
Management LLC in Santa Barbara, California, and a participant in the 
poll. “I expect further macroeconomic weakness and sub-par returns in 
the stock market for the foreseeable future.”
 
Stocks Slide
 
The MSCI China/Financials Index of shares has tumbled 22 percent this 
year, underperforming the broader MSCI China Index of equities, which is 
down 17 percent. China Life Insurance Co. (2628) has declined 32 percent 
and Bank of China Ltd. (3988) 30 percent, contributing the most to the 
financial index’s losses.
Enthusiasm for Chinese stocks has flagged among Bloomberg users. In the 
latest poll, 21 percent called China one of the best places to invest 
over the next year. That was less than half the 44 percent who named 
China in an October 2009 Bloomberg survey.
Thirty-five percent of respondents said they expect China’s economic 
growth to slow to less than 5 percent from the 9.1 percent year-on-year 
pace recorded in the third quarter. Thirty- one percent anticipated 
“serious political or economic instability that stalls growth.” American 
investors were the most pessimistic, with 40 percent expecting a Chinese 
crisis.
A plurality of 46 percent of investors described the Chinese economy as 
“deteriorating” -- up from 38 percent in September -- compared with 40 
percent who said it was “stable.”
 
Goldman’s Outlook
 
The skepticism contrasts with the outlook of economists from Goldman 
Sachs Group Inc. and the International Monetary Fund, who predict China 
will avoid a growth slump while defusing inflation. Goldman Sachs, in a 
Dec. 1 report, projected the nation’s gross domestic product will rise 
8.6 percent next year and 8.7 percent in 2013.
A relatively low central government debt burden gives Premier Wen 
Jiabao’s administration the fiscal wherewithal to address a jump in 
non-performing loans. The IMF estimates the government’s gross 
debt-to-GDP ratio at 27 percent this year, compared with 100 percent for 
the U.S. and 233 percent in Japan.
The World Bank said last month that while China faces the risk of a 
“strong” impact from a real-estate correction, it has “ample” scope to 
cushion its economy. Policy makers have begun responding to the signs of 
a weakening outlook, with the People’s Bank of China last week lowering 
banks’ reserve requirements for the first time since 2008 to encourage 
lending.
 
Best in Class
 
“China, simply put, is the best managed major economy on the planet,” 
said Anthony Stephens, an equity trader with Standard Chartered Bank in 
Hong Kong and a survey participant.
Most investors in the poll don’t anticipate China’s relative economic 
performance translating into broader influence that would displace the 
U.S. as the world’s preeminent superpower.
Forty-one percent of poll respondents said that the U.S. would remain 
militarily dominant even as the Chinese economy eventually overtakes it 
in size. An additional 27 percent said China would “never surpass” the 
U.S. as the top global force. Only 25 percent agreed that China would 
“inevitably replace” it as the No. 1 superpower.
President Barack Obama’s administration has sought to enhance the U.S.’s 
stature in Asia this year, an initiative Secretary of State Hillary 
Clinton has described as a “pivot” toward the region after a decade of 
American focus on war in the Middle East. As part of the approach, the 
administration is seeking a free-trade agreement with Pacific nations 
including Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore, and last month enhanced its 
security ties with Australia.
 
U.S. in Asia
 
Global investors are skeptical of the U.S. effort, highlighted when 
Obama hosted the annual 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 
summit in Honolulu last month and attended an East Asia Summit in Bali, 
Indonesia. Fifty-six percent said the campaign “will not enhance U.S. 
influence and end up antagonizing China,” compared with 30 percent who 
expect it to serve as an “effective counterweight” to Chinese power.
“China’s rising power and the United States’ traditional role are 
increasingly coming into conflict in the region,” said Michael Swaine, 
author of “America’s Challenge: Engaging A Rising China in the 21st 
Century” and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace. “These two countries have very different views on 
what sustains prosperity and stability.”
 
Leadership Assessment
 
Investors this year have become less enamored of Chinese President Hu 
Jintao, with 47 percent saying they were optimistic about his 
leadership, compared with 38 percent who described themselves as 
pessimistic. In January, Bloomberg customers favored Hu by a 60 percent 
to 30 percent margin.
China is in the midst of a planned leadership shift that will culminate 
late next year with the 18th Communist Party Congress. The conclave, 
which occurs every five years, is likely to tap Vice President Xi 
Jinping as China’s next president and Li Keqiang, currently vice 
premier, as prime minister.
Ahead of that comes an annual conference by top government officials 
this month that may affirm the shift to stimulus already telegraphed by 
last week’s bank reserve-ratio cut. Goldman analysts also predict an 
endorsement of “structural” tax cuts in the wake of rapid gains in 
fiscal revenue.
Global investors are confident the new team will continue the shift 
toward private enterprise devised in the late 1970s by Deng Xiaoping. In 
the poll, 49 percent of Bloomberg customers said the Chinese leadership 
will move toward free markets, while 37 percent forecast a tightening of 
state control over the economy. Asian investors were most upbeat, with 
55 percent anticipating further opening.
 
Next Administration
 
Among the tasks that may face the next government is clearing any 
wreckage left from a surge in non-performing loans. The IMF, in its 
first formal evaluation of China’s financial system Nov. 15, called for 
further moves toward a “market-based financial system,” including 
upgraded bank risk-management systems and additional skilled personnel 
for the central bank and regulatory agencies.
“Many government liabilities are hiding in the banking system,” says 
Yin-Chen Chang, a consulting associate at Waterland Securities in 
Taipei, Taiwan.
 
The Bloomberg Global Poll was conducted by Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, 
Iowa-based firm. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.0 
percentage points.
 
To contact the reporter on this story: David J. Lynch in Washington at 
dlyn...@bloomberg.net
 
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Anstey in Tokyo 
at 
can...@bloomberg.net
 
-- 
Namib
 
"Per realitatem et perfectionem idem intelligo" (Baruch Spinoza)

 next five years,
 
The next five years  :-))
 
Suppongo ci saranno tante banche gia' defunte in the next two years.
E non in Cina.
 
La vedo dura fare pronostici di sti tempi. 
 
 

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:4ee0fd04$0$1383$4faf...@reader2.news.tin.it...

ti sta crollando il terreno sotto i piedi? :-) 
 

 
"Lord Curzon" <lord....@curzon.cur> wrote in message 
news:4ee1244e$0$1393$4faf...@reader1.news.tin.it...

Non molto, abbastanza prevedibile la situazione, ma non le velocita' e i 
punti di attacco.
 
Meglio stare coperti in inverno.