Introduction Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce firm, raised $25 billion from its initial U.S. public offering (IPO) in September 2014 putting China on the e-commerce world map. This exemplified China’s ongoing transformation from a low-skilled, cheap labor manufacturing assembly economy to…
Reforming the Financial Industry The Eighteenth Party Congress’ Third Plenary Session’s Decision of November 2013 lists a new round of financial reforms aimed at introducing more market forces into the economic system. Two of the most important facets of this…
China’s Currency Reforms from a Banker’s Perspective: A Conversation with Henry Yu, Managing Director of Fifth Third Bank, Atlanta, Georgia.
Introduction
As China’s economy moves ever closer to surpassing the U.S. in terms of purchasing power GDP, China’s currency system seems incompatible with its global economic status. China’s new leadership led by President Xi Jinping is pushing to modernize and marketize the currency system along with necessary concurrent reforms. The 2008 financial crisis was a wake-up call for many countries, demonstrating the heavy dependence of the global economy on the U.S. dollar. The vulnerability of the U.S. economy became everyone’s challenge. Reform of the Renminbi (RMB) became a priority in order to establish the Chinese currency as a global player and lessen China’s reliance on the U.S. dollar. Aside from the fallout from the financial crisis, the sheer size of China’s cross-border trade is creating demand for far more depth and flexibility in the currency markets.
Introduction China's vast rural areas and lesser known cities have become a focus of attention both for China's banking industry and foreign banks. A major signal of this trend came in 2010, when AgBank of China, one of the country's…
China's Economy & Financial Market Context In 1980, as Chinese reforms were just getting under way, the country's gross national income amounted to 9% of the figure reported by the United States. Last year, China's GNI had climbed to 51%…