Y es el ahorro lo que provoca la inversión. Ahorrar e invertir es lo que deberían estar haciendo el resto de los países occidentales y no hacen. El mensaje aquí es contrario, venga a consumir más, a pedir más créditos, a repetir los errores del pasado. Y no es así, hay que ahorrar (sector público), para poder invertir más…
Desde el Financial Times, Martin Wolf cuenta la posición privilegiada del ahorro de los chinos frente a los estadounidenses. Los chinos son los grandes ahorradores del mundo, tienen una tasa de ahorro del 50% anual. Descomunal en términos comparativos con otros países. Tienen el dinero en depósitos bancarios, que la gran banca usa para invertir y que les ha permitido incrementar su tamaño considerablemente hasta ser los bancos más grandes del mundo y estar dispuestos a financiar las inversiones que necesita el país:
Chinese savers can scorch the world
We have had enough fun with financial crises. Beijing needs to reform first and then open up
This year China’s gross national savings will be close to $5tn. US savings will be only $3tn. If, as planned, China were to open its capital account – allowing foreigners to invest in China and the Chinese to invest abroad – the scale of its savings would surely reshape global finance. Done well, liberalisation would bring huge changes. Done badly, it could shake the foundations of already fragile global finance.
China’s closed capital account brings an important benefit both to the country itself and to the world. It makes it relatively simple for Beijing to manage domestic financial shocks. A severe and unexpected Chinese slowdown would be a big event but at least the spillover to the financial systems of the rest of the world would be relatively minor.
China and the world
If the capital account were to be opened, that would change: any crises might become more difficult to manage and their impact on the rest of the world’s financial system would also be far greater. If, in the long run, Chinese entities became the world’s largest owners of financial assets, any big shock within China would become a global event, just as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession of the 2000s in the US shook the world economy.
In a document published in 2012, the People’s Bank of China argued that an open capital account would improve the quality of Chinese foreign assets, promote cross-border use of the renminbi and help the country’s enterprises restructure. Moreover, it insisted, capital controls were becoming ineffective. In addition, it suggested that “China would not face big risks” if it opened the capital account, since the assets and liabilities of banks were denominated in renminbi, short-term debt was a small proportion of China’s foreign debts and risks in the domestic property and capital markets were manageable.
Pride may go before a fall. As we have seen many times, the quality of balance sheets can deteriorate frighteningly quickly, particularly if unfamiliar opportunities and players enter the domestic markets. In 1998 Stanley Fischer, then first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, argued that the preconditions for successful capital account liberalisation were a stable macroeconomic environment, a sound banking system and developed financial markets. China certainly lacks the third. Whether it has the second is very much open to debate and so, for this reason, is the first. Given the risks of capital account liberalisation, particularly in such a huge economy, the sensible view is that China is not yet ready.
The People’s Bank recognised this. It proposed dividing the task into three periods. In the first three years, controls on foreign direct investment by enterprises would be relaxed. Over three to five years, the aim would be to relax controls on trade-related credit and spur internationalisation of the renminbi. Over five to 10 years, the plan was to open up capital inflows before outflows. The People’s Bank planned to leave personal transactions, money-market instruments and derivatives to the end. It also wished to rule out (hard-to-define) speculative transactions indefinitely.
It is easy to see why such a plan for opening is attractive. First, it could prove to be a sharp spur to domestic reform. Second, China’s huge savings are now locked up inside China. The principal form of capital outflow has been the accumulation of foreign currency reserves by the government. At $3.8tn last December (almost $3,000 for each Chinese person), these are gigantic and extremely unrewarding. It would be far better if some of this were converted into real assets.
If, in the long run, Chinese entities became the world’s largest owners of financial assets, any big shock within China would become a global event
Yet opening is also risky. Very large increases in gross flows (and so stocks) would follow on both sides of the balance sheet. A study published by the Bank of England at the end of last year suggests that the combination of opening, relatively rapid economic growth and a reduction in the tendency to prefer domestic assets might raise China’s external assets and liabilities from less than 5 per cent of world gross domestic product to nearly 35 per cent by 2025. Similarly, an IMF study published last August argued: “Capital account liberalisation may be followed by a stock adjustment of Chinese assets abroad on the order of 15-25 per cent of GDP and a smaller stock adjustment for foreign assets in China on the order of 2-10 per cent of GDP. This would imply a net accumulation of Chinese net international assets of 11-18 per cent of GDP.” China would then move from being a relatively minor actor in global capital markets to one of the central players. (See charts.)
A chapter in China’s Road to Greater Financial Stability, published by the IMF last year, lists some of the countries that embarked on liberalisation of the financial system and the capital account only to hit the rocks: Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea are among them. All liberalisation opens up unfamiliar opportunities. But opening the capital account then adds both to the opportunities and the unfamiliarity. If the system being opened up is riddled with price distortions and suffused with moral hazard – China’s suffers from both on a huge scale – the chances of mishap are great. If the regulators are operating in an unfamiliar environment, as would be the case in China, the chances become greater still. And if the ratio of domestic credit and money to GDP is also very high (as in China), the chances become even greater. Finally, this is a matter of global concern when the economy in question will be the world’s biggest.
The instinct of the People’s Bank that capital account liberalisation could be a battering ram for reform is correct. Moreover, such a reform would not be merely financial and economic. It would also be political. If China’s capital account were to be fully liberalised, the government would lose its grip on the most effective of all its economic levers.
Whatever the attractions of speed, this process has to be carefully managed. For China and the world, the risks are too big to approach this in any other way. We have all surely had enough fun with financial crises to last a long time. China needs to reform first and only then open up, ideally in close dialogue with its partners. In the long run China’s capital account will presumably become largely open and in time, no doubt, China’s savers will own large parts of the world. But, as the Romans said, let them hurry slowly.
No sé si te has percatado que tiene una PIIN positiva, frente a una PIIN negativa de EEUU. Es el saldo con el exterior lo que provoca que un país tenga problemas y otros no. Recuerda el caso de España que tiene una PIIN del -100%, es decir, que una vez que vendamos todos los activos exteriores aún debemos un 100% de nuestro PIB fuera… Terrorífico, que se suma a nuestra deuda pública acumulada… Abrazos,
PD1: LA FED de San Luis no está muy preocupada por el Shadow banking de China:
By Yi Wen, Assistant Vice President, and Maria Arias, Research Associate
The low (and sometimes negative) real interest rate environment resulting from government stimulus following the 2008 recession drove numerous individuals and investors to look for higher yields and a more diversified portfolio through the “shadow banking system.” Moreover, significant restrictions were placed on the formal banking system in 2010 to curb rapid credit growth and contain increasing inflation. This reduced credit availability for many individuals and small- to medium-sized companies, which caused many to turn to informal and shadow financing for loans. As a result, shadow banking in China ballooned, growing by 28 percent in 2011 and 42 percent in 2012 and fueled by those looking to circumvent interest rate controls and tighter credit regulations.
Shadow banking can have economic advantages—mainly widening access to credit and better rewarding savers—but its underground nature can cause serious systemic risks, especially when the system is interconnected and parties are highly leveraged.
Amidst slowing long-term growth in cities where the economy is now declining faster, such as the district of Wenzhou, underground borrowers are defaulting on their payments more frequently, widening worries that the shadow banking sector will collapse. In this southeastern district, more than 80 businessmen declared bankruptcy or even committed suicide over a six-month period in 2012 because they could not make payments on underground loans.1 The lack of regulatory oversight thus exacerbates the potential systemic risk.
Though the sector’s rapid growth is concerning, the relative risk is not as large. Including other sources of informal financing,2 the Chinese shadow banking system at year-end 2012 was about 36 trillion yuan, or 69.3 percent of GDP. Trusts and wealth management products, the two largest components, accounted for 14.5 trillion yuan, or 28.1 percent of GDP. For comparison, shadow banking in the U.S. was 170 percent of GDP.3
In contrast to the United States, the relative impact of a system collapse would be more limited in China for several reasons:
+ Investors are less leveraged than in the U.S. prior to the Great Recession.
+ State banks are more profitable.
+ Institutions are less interconnected.
+ The boom is mostly driven by domestic investment instead of foreign capital inflows.
Also, the government announced it would not bail out nonbanks in the case of failure. Therefore, the greatest burden would fall on domestic investors, not the government or taxpayers. Finally, the wealth management products and trusts that account for most of the shadow banking boom in China are much less complex than the innovative financial products sold in the U.S. Consequently, a collapse of the shadow banking sector in China would have limited impact on the Chinese economy as well as on the world economy.
Assume the worst possible scenario where a shadow banking system collapse in China is similar in nature to that experienced in the U.S. during the Great Recession. Considering that the level of GDP declined about 10 percent in the U.S. from its pre-recession trend, the level of GDP in China would decline by about 4 percent—given the relative size of its shadow banking system. China represents only about 12 percent of world GDP, so a 4 percent slowdown in economic activity in China would not amount to a large decline in world GDP.
El Shadow Banking de China:
Y el ratio prestamos/depósitos, que en España alcanzamos en el año 2008 la burrada del 180%, allí lo tienen estable en el entorno de los 65%
Y es tan falsa la imagen de que China vive para exportar... Es mentira. China crece por consumo y una fuerte inversión que se realiza allí. Su aportación del sector exterior lleva muchos años que incluso es negativa…
La que si exporta mucho es Alemania, a pesar del euro fuerte. Mira los datos:
PD2: Las valoraciones de los mercados emergentes son muy atractivas:
PD3: Parece que no avanzamos, pero en pocos años se han logrado muchas cosas. Los países que se duermen se quedan fuera de juego…
De 128 MB a 128 GB, tu me entiendes, una burrada en tan pequeño espacio.
En España nuestro cambio ha sido este:
PD4: Ser rico no es cuanto tienes, sino cuanto das. Me ha gustado mucho este video, te lo recomiendo. Para esto es para lo que estamos en la vida, para darnos a los demás, para dar nuestro esfuerzo, nuestro amor, nuestro dinero… Si te lo quieres quedar todo, te equivocas, te conviertes en un pobre avaro.
