Hot on the heels of extensive recent coverage in the Wall Street Journal of CKGSB Finance Professor Gan Jie’s revealing new survey on China’s industrial economy comes two more articles from award-winning media outlets keen to showcase Prof Gan’s thoughts on the state of China’s economy.
One of the most exciting pieces of research currently being done at CKGSB is a groundbreaking new large-scale survey conducted on China’s industrial economy by CKGSB Finance Professor Gan Jie – and the media are taking note.
Following recent coverage of the survey in the Wall Street Journal, another two media outlets have sought out Prof Gan’s analysis. The Monitor Global Outlook, the business intelligence unit of the Christian Science Monitor, discusses the central bank’s recent interest-rate cut in liberalizing deposit rates:
The overall borrowing appetite is weak, says Gan Jie, a professor of finance at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. Only 3 percent of the 2,015 industrial firms recently surveyed by the school identified credit as a key bottleneck, according to the results released in November. Almost half of the firms said they had no desire to borrow or plan for expansion in the near future as they struggle with overcapacity and falling prices.
Ms. Gan says interest rate cuts could be a way of buying time for more fundamental reforms, such as slashing the ranks of the powerful state-owned enterprises to let private firms operate more freely. “Reform is always very slow,” she says. “We take a gradual approach. Now we have used up everything else, there may be more movement to tackle this.”
Meanwhile the South China Morning Post also quotes Prof Gan in an article discussing the government’s strategy when it comes to bailing out banks and others:
“The current administration is smart enough to know that they can’t continue with the policies of the previous administration,” said Gan Jie, a finance professor at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, pointing to the 4 trillion yuan stimulus package announced by former Premier Wen Jiabao in 2008. “At the same time, they know a hard landing is possible and they’re the one who will get blamed.” The central government’s desire to keep corporations afloat has led to some knee-jerk reactions, such as a surprise interest rate cut on November 21 that followed more than 770 billion yuan in cash injections to banks over September and October.
To read Prof Gan’s Q3 large-scale survey results and analysis in full, please click here.
