CHINA
Saturday, February 28, 1998
Beijing plans rescue to stave off bank meltdown
By DAVID LAGUE
Beijing: China is planning an urgent rescue for its bankrupt state-owned banks in an effort to avoid a financial meltdown that would slash economic growth and endanger social stability.
Official business newspapers said this week that the Government would use the proceeds from the sale of $US1.5 billion ($2.23 billion) in new government bonds as the first step to repair a banking system estimated to be carrying bad loans worth more than $US200 billion.
The official media now routinely carry reports calling for urgent bank reforms and for depositor insurance schemes - one sign that the authorities fear a banking crisis.
The special bond issue is expected to be approved at next week's meeting of China's parliament, the National People's Congress.
The World Bank and international experts have urged China to shore up a banking system that has been forced to extend huge loans to failing state-owned industries with little chance of recovering the money.
The need to avoid a financial collapse was one of the major reasons for the Government deciding late last year to launch a sweeping overhaul of state-owned industries. Struggling businesses were urged to merge, sell shares, streamline or close rather than remain a drain on the banks.
Diplomats and financial analysts in Beijing said the senior Chinese leadership understood that the four major state-owned banks which account for 90 per cent of the country's banking market should be allowed to become fully commercial businesses.
A senior government official told the official China Daily this week that the country's banks must be allowed to operate free from government interference.
The secretary-general of the State Commission for Reconstructing the Economic System, Mr Guo Shuquing, said the Government should restrict its role to enacting law and supervising the banking system.
State-owned banks had to be free to make commercial decisions, including setting interest rates.
Mr Guo said: "The purpose of financial reform is to increase the efficiency of financial services, and all reform measures should help promote fair and rational competition."
While the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, says bad loans make up about 6 per cent of total bank lending, the real figure is thought to be 20 per cent or more.
The credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's estimates that the banking system's bad loans are worth up to 60 per cent of China's gross domestic product, which was about $US900 billion last year, according to official statistics.
If this estimate is accurate, China's banks are in dramatically worse shape than South Korea's debt-laden banks.
Foreign diplomats believe that with the Chinese Government's tight control over the media there is less chance that depositors would learn about the true state of the banking system and begin a run on banks. Nevertheless, they say the danger remains that the public could lose confidence in the safety of their savings.
The proposed bond issue would fall far short of the amount needed to bail out the banks but Chinese financial authorities are understood to have ruled out any attempt at supplying enough capital, even if it was available, to fully restore the health of the financial system.
They argue that the banks need to become commercial before they are recapitalised or the funds could be wasted.
Rampant corruption in the banking system also needed to be tackled. The semi-official China News Service reported this week that the chairman of the People's Bank, Mr Dai Xianglong, told a conference in Beijing that fighting corruption in the financial system was "vital to the life or death of the [Communist] party and the country". |
