Word: fangs
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...face-off between Blanque and Tyson highlights a sharp divergence in risk perceptions at the board session, which also included Moises Naim, formerly Venezuela's Trade and Industry Minister, who is editor of the Washington-based journal Foreign Policy; Fang Xinghai, the deputy chief executive of the Shanghai Stock Exchange; and Slawomir Sikora, president of Poland's Bank Handlowy w Warszawie--now part of Citigroup...
...Fang was bemused by such talk. A Stanford man who joined the board for the first time this year, he said there is no reason to think that China's economy will soon boil over simply because it's growing at about 8% to 9% a year. Japan, he pointed out, averaged a growth rate of about 10% for 25 years during its big developmental leap starting in the 1950s. China's inflation is relatively low, and a huge surplus of workers in China keeps the labor market humming--and cheap. The starting salary of an average Chinese college graduate...
Sure, there are signs of overheating in some sectors. The number of cars sold in China doubled last year, to more than 2 million, for example, and the real estate market in some coastal regions is frothy. But the central bank is trying to thwart overspeculation. Fang regrets not buying an apartment in Shanghai when he moved there a year ago; prices have jumped 60% since then. "The room for policy maneuver is very big, and we shouldn't be concerned about overheating," he said...
...Fang had a different perspective. The exchange rate "has served China very well, and we don't want to change voluntarily," he said, although none of the board ruled out the possibility that the country could eventually yield to U.S. pressure. But "it's wrong to focus so much energy on the exchange rate," Fang argued, noting that even a 5% movement wouldn't do much to help plug the U.S. trade deficit. It would be far smarter to address concerns like China's uncompetitive service sector--allowing foreign banks to set up shop, for example. "China can open...
...French economist, like Fang, warned against excessive focus on currency. Governments, particularly in France and Germany, need to continue reforming their economies to boost productivity, reduce the relatively high cost of labor and find better investment uses for a huge pool of savings that is sitting in bank accounts that yield very low returns. France's savings rate is higher even than Japan's. "The strength of the euro highlights European structural problems; it doesn't cause them," Blanque said...