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China's growth crucial to crisis control

By Hu Yuanyuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-13 10:14

Shannon Martinez shops for clothing at a Wal-Mart Store in Thornton, Colorado. The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, says it has located its global purchasing office in China and around half of the purchased products would be exported. But this year purchases of made-in-China commodities may be smaller than last year due to the global financial turmoil and weakening market demand.[China Daily]

Pan Jingshan, a manager at Zhejiang Grand Import and Export Co, spent a sleepless night on October 4. His worries were partly eased when the US Congress finally approved a historic $700 billion government bailout for the battered financial industry.

Although he has worked for the company - one of the largest import and export firms in Zhejiang province - for seven years, the world had never seemed to be as small as it is right now. Sitting in his office in Ningbo, a coastal city in eastern China, he could clearly feel the pinch brought by financial turmoil on the other end of the globe.

"Our orders from European countries have fallen by 20 percent so far this month, and we've cut our profit margin by nearly 50 percent to maintain business growth," says Pan, adding he never expected the financial turbulence on Wall Street to have such a major impact in such a short period of time.

"The US financial market is not just the US market itself, it is the world financial market. What is good for the US is also good for every country, including China," says Guo Shuqing, chairman of China Construction Bank.

As the world's second largest owner of US debt, Chinese decision-makers are quite clear about this point and promised to "join hands" with other nations to tackle the deepest financial crisis since the 1930s. But the question is what kind of rescuer could China be?

"The biggest contribution we can make to the world economy under the current circumstances is to maintain China's strong, stable and relatively fast growth, and avoid big fluctuations," Premier Wen Jiabao said at the recently concluded 2008 Summer Davos in Tianjin.

And many economists echo his viewpoint.

High growth

"The most helpful measure China can take now is to maintain its robust growth, thus it could be a buffer for the rest of the world," says Louis Kuijs, senior economist of the World Bank's Beijing office.

Peng Wensheng, head of China Research at Barclays, says a sound economy and a stable financial market are the prerequisites for China to make any other moves to help ease the global storm.

So far, China has been relatively unscathed by the crisis. The country remains a huge net exporter of savings, boasting the world's largest foreign reserves of $1.8 trillion; the financial system is awash with cash; and capital account controls shield it from volatile outflows. But that does not means China will be immune to an economic downturn.

With the US and the EU accounting for about 40 percent of China's total exports, the country's exports are sensitive to weaker demand in industrialized countries. And lackluster exports will likely translate into poor performance of corporate earnings and weak confidence, dampening the investment appetite in export-oriented industries.

Meanwhile, China's double-digit GDP growth is expected to drop to around 9 percent in 2009. The benchmark Shanghai Composite index has dropped nearly 60 percent so far this year, and inflation rates remain above policymakers' comfort zone.

To boost China's economy, and also as part of concerted efforts by global central banking authorities to respond to the global crisis, the People's Bank of China on Wednesday cut the interest rate by 0.27 percentage points and the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points. In addition, in order to boost domestic demand, the State Council scrapped the 5 percent individual income tax on savings interest earnings on Thursday.

More rate cuts?

And to boost the economy, the government is very likely to bring about a further easing of monetary policy and a more simulative fiscal policy in the form of tax cuts and extra government spending, experts say.

"We are expecting the central bank to take another two rate cuts by 0.27 percentage points each in the following six months," says Peng Wensheng.

While striving to keep China's economy on the right track, the government may also continue to buy US treasuries.

Though the central bank has denied media reports that China will buy up to $200 billion worth of US treasuries to help Washington combat the deepening financial crisis, experts say US treasuries remain a comparatively safe investment for China.

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