The reform of the banking industry has attracted worldwide attention. Jiang Jianqing cannot easily control such an aircraft carrier. He once confided his hopes and worries about the reform of state-owned commercial banks. "The bank's restructuring plan includes financial restructuring, the establishment of joint-stock companies, the introduction of overseas strategic investors and even listing." However, "improving corporate governance is the core of deepening the reform of commercial banks." "If the outside world looks at this process with an idealized eye, it will be very disappointing. Reorganization is a painful process and an endless war. "
One of the thorny issues in Jiang Jianqing is how to deal with numerous contradictions within ICBC and how to coordinate workers' dissatisfaction with the leadership. Starting from 1997, ICBC began to merge its business organizations and streamline its business team. By 2005, the number of employees was 360,000, about 35% less than the peak period. Jiang Jianqing's goal is to continue to "reduce the size of second-line personnel and adjust and enrich the first line". In order to write off bad debts, most of ICBC's annual profits are retained, which means that employees' bonuses and benefits have shrunk dramatically.
All this made Jiang Jianqing criticized, but he carried out reforms with great tenacity, and listing was undoubtedly a staged victory. But Jiang Jianqing said, "I don't think there is any breakthrough in the reform. It's hard to imagine that one thing has been broken and all the problems have been solved. Running a commercial bank is running a marathon, not running faster at 100 meters, but running continuously. " Accelerating the construction of Shanghai financial center is not only beneficial to China's financial development, but also plays an important role in preventing the risks brought by the unbalanced development of global financial markets.
Speaking with a Shanghai accent, Jiang Jianqing, the chairman of China Industrial and Commercial Bank, has always been rigorous and low-key in the eyes of the media.
June 5438+October 2006 10, China Industrial and Commercial Bank listed on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges, with a total market value exceeding 1 trillion yuan, creating the largest IPO in the world at that time. At the same time, this issue has created a number of records: Hong Kong and the mainland market listed the first share at the same price, and the listed company with the largest market value in the A-share market.
In May 2008, Jiang Jianqing attended Lujiazui Forum 2008. Long-term banking experience and solid theoretical foundation make him have a keen insight into China's banking industry and a unique understanding of the market and risks.
In response to the subprime mortgage crisis that broke out in the United States last year, Jiang Jianqing said: "As the most far-reaching financial event after the Asian financial crisis, the subprime mortgage crisis showed us the long-term impact of risk agglomeration, risk contagion and risk release in the financial sector in an unforgettable way."
Financial risks do not distinguish between countries and systems. Once any country or region relaxes its vigilance and neglects its prevention, it may feel the pain of risk outbreak at any time.
Goldman Sachs, a wall street investment bank, said in a report released in March this year that it is estimated that the global credit losses caused by the market turmoil caused by the subprime mortgage crisis will reach 1.2 trillion US dollars, of which nearly 40% of the losses will come from Wall Street, and American lending institutions, including banks, brokers, hedge funds and government-backed enterprises, will suffer about 460 billion US dollars of credit losses after withdrawing loan loss reserves. Jiang Jianqing believes that the subprime mortgage crisis is not over yet, the possibility of economic recession in the United States still exists, and the haze brought by the subprime mortgage crisis is even less likely to disappear immediately. There are serious problems in modern financial risks, financial innovation, bond evaluation and information transparency, which have aroused deep concern in the international financial community and urgently need reform. "The global financial structure and financial development mode are facing re-adjustment and review."
Faced with the huge uncertainty of the international market, ICBC avoided the catastrophe of the subprime mortgage crisis with its cautious attitude towards risks. At the annual report conference of ICBC in March this year, Yang Kaisheng, president of ICBC, introduced that the bank * * * has subprime mortgage-backed bonds10.226 billion USD, and accumulated provision for impairment of 400 million USD. "The floating loss of impairment provision relative to us is 65,438+065,438+02%. For our subprime floating losses at the end of 2007, they were all covered. " "Many people attribute the subprime mortgage crisis to unstable credit risk management, and irregular financial innovation has led to this spread, even too loose monetary policy and failure to perform their duties well in evaluation and rating, but people often ignore the impact of the structural imbalance of financial markets," Jiang Jianqing said. He believes that from the current structure of the global bond market, the proportion of the US bond market is too large, which is actually not conducive to the effective diversification of risks by global investors.
According to the statistics of the Bank for International Settlements, by the end of 2007, the balance of US domestic bonds accounted for 43. 1% of the global domestic bond balance, while the balance of US international bonds accounted for 20% of the global international bond balance in the same period. In this way, we can see that, in fact, investors all over the world have invested their money in this American bond market with large transaction scale, good liquidity, good past returns and considered strict risk management.
"We put all our eggs in one basket," Jiang Jianqing said. Therefore, this unbalanced market structure intensifies the global spread and transfer of risks in the US bond market. At present, China's foreign exchange reserves and foreign exchange funds held by commercial banks and enterprises, including residents, are huge, which brings us great challenges to maintain and enhance the safety, liquidity and profitability of investment in China. Jiang Jianqing pointed out that at present, international finance is facing a huge new challenge, that is, the global financial volume is more than ten times that of the global real economy, and we are facing a weak dollar, rampant inflation and fragile market. The status of the dollar as an international currency has declined, and the international function of its currency has been weakened. The depreciation of the dollar has pushed up the prices of oil, gold, food and other commodities. It can be seen that as the triple connotation of the international monetary system, the security of global reserve assets, the stability of exchange rate system and the controllability of price level have all been impacted.
The domestic macroeconomic situation is also facing challenges. The regulatory authorities chose to use tight monetary policy to curb inflation.
Jiang Jianqing pointed out that under the background of subprime mortgage crisis and global inflationary pressure, countries have different monetary policy orientations. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates sharply, the European Central Bank cut interest rates less likely, the Bank of England cut interest rates twice, and the Bank of Japan was forced to give up the idea of raising interest rates. Monetary policy focusing on self-interest and immediate effect not only greatly reduces the role of restoring global market confidence, but also leads to a large number of excess liquidity and cross-border speculation around the world, which also curbs the next round of asset bubbles. Accelerating the construction of Shanghai financial center will play an important role in preventing global financial risks.
Jiang Jianqing clearly pointed out that the struggle for the status of financial center is, in the final analysis, the struggle for the dominance of economic development and the pricing power of financial resources. Jiang Jianqing believes that this explains why the competition among countries for the status of an international financial center is becoming more and more fierce. Speeding up the construction of Shanghai's domestic and international financial centers is not only beneficial to China's financial development, but also plays an important role in preventing the risks brought by the unbalanced development of the global financial market.
Jiang Jianqing said that many discussions about subprime mortgage now focus on how to improve an old market, but in fact, more attention should be paid to how to establish a new market.
"From many years ago, in the global stock market, the financing of new shares was basically completed in the United States. In recent years, the development of the A-share market and the Hong Kong stock market, our largest IPO-ICBC financing 2 1 billion US dollars, was completed in the A-share market and the Hong Kong stock market. "
Jiang Jianqing believes that dealing with the market risks of the current system requires a two-pronged approach. "In order to meet the challenge, I think China's investment should pay more attention to the diversification of investment fields and products, and rapidly develop China's local and foreign currency bond market."
On the one hand, it is necessary for China to change the current situation that the investment field is too concentrated in the US bond market, and to find and explore investment opportunities in more economies. In order to reduce the systemic risk caused by single market fluctuation, it is particularly important to establish and improve the regional bond market.
Jiang Jianqing said that China should speed up the construction and development of an efficient, deep and liquid domestic bond market, which may also develop into an Asian bond market in the future. With the increasing recognition of Shibor (Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate), the issuance and listing of corporate bonds and the opening of the fixed electronic platform of Shanghai Stock Exchange, the transactions in Shanghai Stock Exchange have steadily advanced. However, compared with the global market, the development of China market still has a long way to go.
In addition, it is necessary for China to properly adjust its currency structure, reduce the exchange rate risk caused by US dollar assets, appropriately shift its investment direction to the international commodity market, increase China's strategic resource reserve, and enhance the overall risk diversification ability of China's portfolio. In terms of diversified investment, Jiang Jianqing pointed out that we should start with details and always pay attention to controlling risks. First, step by step; Second, we must be steady. By carefully identifying the potential risks of new target markets and new target products, and accumulating experience through small-scale intervention in the early stage; Third, we should pay attention to the overall planning and improve the relevance between the overall products; Fourth, establish a good supervision system, transparent information disclosure and scientific organization system.