World Credit Rating Forum held in Beijing

World Credit Rating Forum, a forum first of its kind in human history, was held in Beijing on June 29, 2015.

Sponsored by Universal Credit Rating Group and Xinhua New Agency-Xinhua.net and organized by Dagong Global Credit Rating Group, it brought together participants from the political, economic, credit rating and financial circles worldwide in a bid to conduct broad and detailed discussions over the reconstruction of world credit rating pattern and make joint efforts to promote the process of reforming the international credit rating system.

The 2008 global credit crisis testifies that credit rating is crucial to the sound development of humanity, that the credit ratings assigned by Western credit rating agencies cannot be relied upon for assuming the rating responsibility for the world, and the international community has to construct a new international rating system. Hence, the overhaul of the current international rating system has been the general consensus of the international community. Yet, seven years after the global credit crisis, faulty ratings are still the basis for the establishment of international fiduciary relationships, global credit expansion is accelerating, and the credit chains are ever more fragile. It is a pressing question that requires immediate answer from the international community and affects the direction of the world economy: how to build a new credit rating system representing the common interest of the entire humanity and, as a counter-cyclical force, being capable of preventing credit crisis triggered by immoderate credit expansion.

The World Credit Rating Forum is the first international conference of its kind in human history that centers on the theme of reforming the existing international rating system. It is a summary of the practical results of the century-long history of credit rating as well as a start for commencing a new chapter of credit rating history. The participants exchanged ideas on four topics: the relationship between credit rating and the world economy development, model choice for a new institutional system of international credit rating, how to establish a rating regulatory concept and system that conform to the development law of credit rating and the importance of a rating theoretical system for the fulfillment of rating responsibility. They make in-depth exploration into the development law of credit rating. Our understanding of credit rating has, as a result, reached a new historic height. Henceforth, humankind is opening up new prospects for joint management of the world rating affairs.

Some experts point out that the international community has not seriously and systematically summarized the lessons learned from the faulty Western ratings, has not found out the causes of the mistakes and has not modified the prolonged effects of the rating mistake upon the world economy. The misallocation of credit resources by Western credit rating agencies exposes the world economy to lasting risks, which adds to the imperativeness of reforming the international rating system. Getting beyond cognitive limitation and achieving a historic change of rating thought is the precondition for rectifying the mistakes made by the Western credit rating agencies, which is exactly the historic mission this Forum intends to accomplish.

Participants of the meeting include Mr. Guan Jianzhong, Chairman of Universal Credit Rating Group, Mr. Dominique de Villepin, former prime minister of France and Chairman of International Advisory Council of UCRG, Mr. Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia and member of IAC, Mr. Shaukat Aziz, former prime minister of Pakistan and member of IAC and Mr. Igor Ivanov, former foreign minister of Russia and member of IAC. They all delivered keynote speeches.

Other participants include Mr. Thomas Missong, President of European Association of Credit Rating Agencies (EACRA), Mr. Santiago Dumlao, Secretary-General of the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia (ACRAA), Mr. Zhiwu Chen, Professor of Finance at Yale School of Management and world top economists such as Mr. Thomas J. Sargent, Professor of Economics of New York University, Nobel Laureate in 2011, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

It is also reported that the International Advisory Council of Universal Credit Rating Group is going to have its annual meeting on June 30th and publish An Initiative on Reforming the International Rating System to Boost Global Economic Recovery.