Impact1◆◆◆
China's exports are affected by the decrease in US consumption.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the acquisition of Merrill Lynch are in the same strain as the subprime mortgage crisis that began last year. In the eyes of many experts, this incident is just a wave in the whole crisis process and should not be treated in isolation. Its impact on China's economy is actually a continuation of the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis on China's macro-economy.
Zhang Bin, deputy director of the World Finance Research Office of the Institute of World Economics and Politics of China Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with this reporter that the impact of the crisis on China can be understood from two aspects: export and import.
In terms of export, it can be predicted that the external macro-economic environment of China will be more severe due to the financial turmoil sweeping the Wall Street. According to the import and export data of the General Administration of Customs, the growth rate of China's foreign trade export slowed down obviously in the first eight months of this year. As the United States is the largest export market for China's goods, the growth rate of China's foreign trade exports, which surged once in June and July, will be tested again. Zhang Bin said that the decline in external demand means that foreign consumers' demand for high value-added products and low value-added products will decrease at the same time. In this environment, exporters may not have the motivation to innovate technology, but are forced to maintain market share by lowering product prices, which may lead to further deterioration of the terms of trade of China's export enterprises.
Zhang Bin also analyzed that under the impact of the financial crisis, the US economy may still decline in the second half of the year, which will lead to the continued decline of its national consumption capacity and desire, while investment expenditure will increase. "This is not good news for China's foreign trade export." If the consumer demand of American citizens decreases and the manufacturing industry gradually recovers due to increased investment, the goods imported from China will inevitably decrease.
Influence 2 ◆◆◆
Increase the cost of domestic imports
On the import side, the impact of the financial turmoil is closely related to the exchange rate of the US dollar. At present, almost all commodities in the international market are priced in dollars, and the strength of the dollar determines the price trend of commodities. From the observable data, the prices of crude oil, iron ore and other commodities have shown a downward trend due to the recent reversal of the US dollar, which is good news for China, which needs a large number of resource products. However, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the unexpected acquisition of Merrill Lynch, the "Fannie and Freddie" announced by the US government a week ago, and the repeated turmoil in the US financial market have seriously affected the trend of the US dollar exchange rate and the confidence of holders.
Sun, deputy dean of the School of Economics of Fudan University and professor of finance, also believes that although the US economic situation performed better than expected in the second quarter and showed sufficient resilience, this was due to the strong export brought by the weak US dollar. Therefore, under the circumstances of the financial turmoil and weak domestic demand, the US government will continue to promote exports under the "weak dollar" and reserve room for the Fed to further cut interest rates.
Zhang Bin said that although the US economy is strong in the medium and long term and the exchange rate of the US dollar is high, the policy of weakening the US dollar in the short term seems to have been recognized by the market. In this way, the prices of crude oil, iron ore and other resource products will be pushed up again, and the cost of importing commodities denominated in US dollars in China will also increase greatly.
Impact 3 ◆◆◆
Seriously hit the confidence of the domestic financial market.
Guo Tianyong, director of the Industry Research Center of China Bank (3.05, 0.08, 2.69%, right) of the Central University of Finance and Economics, said that the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was a continuation of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, which brought considerable losses and impacts to financial institutions. The five major investment banks on Wall Street have strong investment and research teams, with assets exceeding hundreds of billions of dollars and extremely rich information resources, which shows the seriousness of the crisis. "Different financial institutions have suffered different degrees of losses, the only difference is the amount of losses, such as Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were taken over by the US government, and Bear Stearns, which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in March. However, it is better to consider the impact on financial market confidence than to estimate the direct losses of investors.
As far as China is concerned, Guo Tianyong thinks its influence has two levels. The first level is market confidence. The bankruptcy of institutions with big problems in the United States has cast a shadow over the investor psychology in China.
What is certain is that the second day after the news of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy coincided with the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, the A-share market opened, and the banking sector in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets plummeted across the board. The performance can only be described as "terrible". Among them, China Industrial and Commercial Bank (3.44, 0.02, 0.58%, right) fell by 9.95%, and China Construction Bank (3.8 1,-) suffered a vertical blow from various bad news, and the trading volume of banking stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell by more than 9.0% throughout the day, with as many as 8 banking stocks falling. According to the latest information disclosed yesterday, China Merchants Bank (14.92, 0.45, 3. 1 1%, right) had * * * 70 million USD of bond exposure issued by Lehman Brothers as of yesterday, including 60 million senior bonds.
Impact 4◆◆◆
Bring direct losses to domestic financial institutions
The direct impact of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on domestic financial institutions includes two aspects: on the one hand, China's financial institutions and investors hold more subordinated bonds, resulting in actual losses; On the other hand, the financial crisis leads to the recession in the United States, which will be transmitted to China.
Robert Dowling, the former executive editor of Businessweek's North America edition and a senior visiting scholar at Tsinghua University School of Journalism and Communication, expressed his concern about China's banking industry, which holds a large number of stocks and funds of American financial institutions.
According to the bankruptcy documents, the top 30 unsecured creditors of Lehman Brothers are mainly Asian financial institutions, including Japanese Blue Bank, Central Mitsui Trust, Sumitomo Mitsui Finance, Mizuho Industrial Bank, Trust Central Treasury, and Bank of China, a domestic financial institution involved again. It is reported that Lehman owed $462 million to Japanese Blue Sky Bank, $382 million to Mizuho Industrial Bank, and $275 million to Citigroup's Hong Kong subsidiary, while Bank of China new york Branch also took the lead in lending $50 million to Lehman.
"The Wall Street financial turmoil will also slow down China's economic growth to a great extent. After the Olympic Games, China's economic growth has slowed down, "Dowling said. "The financial turmoil in the United States will only make this problem more serious. The financial turmoil caused the US stock index to plummet, while the China administration bought a lot of Wall Street stocks, and banks and fund companies in China also bought a lot of American funds. In addition, the loan difficulties caused by the financial crisis will directly affect China's trade exports. "
"In fact, China's current macroeconomic decline is partly due to domestic economic factors, and some are indeed from the United States and from the outside." Guo Tianyong said, "We talk about imported inflation. In fact, the economic recession is also imported in a sense. Because the United States is the largest economy in the world, the demand for goods and investment in various countries will be very large. Therefore, once there is a problem in the US economy, it may lead to economic decline or recession in the world or many major countries. " (Beijing correspondent Yang Intern Bi Zijia)
Related links: Experts analyze the impact of the US financial crisis on China: fully estimate its severity.
The American Wall Street financial crisis means that large-scale international financial adjustment will be inevitable. So what impact does the Wall Street crisis have on China's economy? The reporter interviewed Professor Zhao Xijun, vice president of the School of Finance and Finance of China Renmin University and deputy director of the Institute of Finance and Securities.
Crisis communication is a dynamic process.
Q: Will the global Wall Street financial turmoil greatly increase the risks faced by China's economic growth?
Zhao Xijun: If a company has a crisis, the direct impact on China is still limited. Although China's financial institutions and some enterprises hold the bonds or assets of these American financial institutions, the scale is not very large. These financial institutions also have joint ventures and investment projects in China, and their plight may have some impact on China's business. But overall, the impact can be controlled.
When the subprime mortgage crisis connects the difficulties of these financial institutions, it may have a negative impact on the global financial market and countries closely linked to the US economy. Trade and investment between China and the United States are very close, and the crisis will certainly spread to China through various channels. It is hard to say how big the impact is at present, because it is a dynamic process.
Q: What are the transmission channels of the Wall Street crisis to China's economy?
Zhao Xijun: The first is the transmission between the real economy. Financial turmoil will affect investment, consumption, employment and residents' income in the United States. For example, when Lehman went bankrupt, about 20,000 employees lost their jobs, and the subprime mortgage crisis caused more people to lose their jobs. As its consumption and investment decline, its imports from China will decrease.
If the dollar depreciates more, the price of products denominated in dollars will increase. Many of our imported products are denominated in US dollars, and the import cost has risen a lot, thus affecting the production cost of China enterprises, and the ex-factory products will definitely increase in price.
Second, the transmission of financial markets. China's foreign exchange reserves and investments by financial institutions and enterprises in the United States are mainly bonds. Once these financial institutions in the United States go bankrupt, the value of their investment products such as bonds will drop rapidly, and the market risk is great.
At the same time, many American financial institutions have invested in companies and projects in China. Many American banks have corporate banks, joint venture banks and equity-participating financial institutions in China. Problems with the parent company of Wall Street will definitely affect the investment and cooperation projects in China. If these companies sell a large amount of assets in China and remit a large amount of funds from China, it will also have a great impact on China's foreign exchange market in the short term.
In addition, the psychology of investors is also affected. Although China controls the direct entry of foreign capital into the financial market, the psychological conduction is continuous.
The third is to conduct it by affecting the performance of enterprises. In the subprime mortgage crisis, the performance of China's export companies and companies providing export services will be affected, which will indirectly affect local fiscal revenue and employment. For example, the GDP of Zhejiang and Guangdong will fall faster.
Fully estimate the severity of the crisis.
Q: The crisis situation on Wall Street just proves the general view of domestic academic circles that the subprime mortgage crisis is "unfathomable and has not yet bottomed out". So, what should we do?
Zhao Xijun: We should find the channels for the crisis to spread, fully estimate the seriousness of the crisis and take targeted measures.
First of all, in terms of export, we should take precautions, open up new export markets, and export some high value-added products that are less affected by financial fluctuations. In particular, to avoid vicious export competition, it is urgent to change from quantity competition to brand competition. In the choice of export settlement currency, it is necessary to avoid exchange rate risk.
Secondly, in financial investment, we should strengthen risk management and strengthen the use of means and tools to avoid risks. China's financial institutions are investing more and more in the United States, and the investment scale is also growing. I used to choose conservative wealth management products for investment, but now the situation is different. Even if you buy US Treasury bonds, you can get principal and interest at maturity, but once the dollar depreciates, your investment will shrink. Now the risk has changed. Credit risk used to be the main risk. Now there are more and more financial innovations, and the types of risks to be considered are becoming more and more complicated.
Finally, strengthen the capacity building and psychological guidance of domestic investors, avoid being influenced by the external environment, and be able to rationally judge their own markets.
Monetary policy should find a balance point.
Q: Some people say that lowering the two rates is one of the measures to deal with the Wall Street crisis, and this adjustment will become a turning point in China's monetary policy. Do you agree?
Zhao Xijun: It's just a coincidence that both interest rate cuts are measures to deal with the Wall Street crisis. The downward adjustment of the two rates is mainly aimed at domestic problems, but domestic problems are caused by changes abroad. I think the downward adjustment of the two rates is a structural downward adjustment and does not represent a fundamental change in policy. Short-term loan interest rates have been lowered more, aiming at the cash flow difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises. The deposit reserve ratio is lowered, mainly for small and medium-sized banks. Small and medium-sized banks can't absorb so much savings from big banks and are short of funds, so they have to borrow money from big banks at high prices, otherwise they will have difficulties in operation.
The formulation and implementation of monetary policy should find a balance point instead of accommodating the old development model. The government should help enterprises to complete the transformation from extensive management to innovative enterprises in terms of industrial policy, fiscal revenue and trade service policy. Instead of lowering the requirements because of corporate difficulties. Monetary policy should promote enterprises to actively seek change, not maintain the status quo.