This Article was originally published on Business Times.

A lot has been said about the potential rescue from China to the current European debt mess. For example, Mr Yu Yongding, a former member of China’s central bank monetary policy committee, wrote in Financial Times (Oct 31, 2011) that “Beijing will not ride to eurozeone’s rescue”.

I would argue the opposite in this article. To understand this issue more deeply, one need to start with a few numbers.

As of Oct 2011, China held a total foreign reserve worth of about 3.2 Trillion US Dollars, with a wide margin ahead of other governments with large foreign reserves such as Japan (less than 1.5 Trillion USD) and Russia (about 500 Billion USD). During January 2011 to September 2011, China has accumulated 354 Billion USD worth of foreign reserve, which was equivalent to about 1.3 Billion USD per day and almost 1 million USD per minute. Read the rest of this entry »

The CEO of Woodsford Capital Management Pte Ltd, Wu Zhijian, has been interviewed by Hedge Week to discuss the regulatory environment in Singapore for Hedge Funds.

伍治坚接受Hedge Week专访并发表对新加坡基金法规环境的看法。

The Interview can be downloaded from HERE.

China’s addiction to GDP growth can be traced back to 1992, more than a decade after the first stirrings of a market economy were launched with the establishment of the special economic zones. The student protests and subsequent clampdown in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 led many in China’s leadership to question the idea of opening up to the outside world. They worried that the introduction of capitalist-style reforms would inevitably weaken the political structure and so the atmosphere was tight and cautious as China entered the 1990s.

Now technically retired from his role in the leadership, Deng took it upon himself to revitalize the reforms he had first put in motion. On a tour of Shanghai, Shenzhen and other cities that had already seen some of the benefits he foresaw for the country from the reform program, Deng told audiences that for China, “growth is the first principle.” He reassured Communist Party members that the leadership would support local efforts to open up the economy and encouraged everyone to continue with the reforms he had started. The official media gave blanket coverage to the tour and speeches, ensuring that Deng’s words would be taken as party doctrine. Read the rest of this entry »

此文原载联合早报

种种迹象表明，如果欧洲政府和中央银行再不采取果断的措施，世界经济很有可能再次跌入衰退的深渊。 很多人对2008年的金融风暴仍然记忆犹新，但是我们今天面临的境况可能比2008年还要严重。主要原因有三：首先，2008年的金融危 机始发于美国，当时的美联储和联邦政府财政部为了应对危机，采取了强有力的措施，比如在短时间内通过TARP（Troubled Asset Relief Program）以及联储的第一次量化宽松。这次的金融危机更多源于欧洲，而由于欧洲独特的政治体制，以及其央行对待危机不同的态度，很难像美国那样，在 短时间内通过大规模的金融方案以稳定市场的信心。

其次，2008年金融危机的时候，全球各国央行纷纷降息，政府纷纷增加财政支出以刺激经济，因此财政政策和货币政策的双重作用，令全球经 济在2009年迅速探底回升。　　但就今天而言，大部分国家的利率已经处于零位或者接近零位，因此下调空间十分有限。同时，大部分政府都为过高的债务，而 不得不紧缩开支或者增加税收，要这些政府再一次启动新一轮财政刺激几乎不太可能。因此，如果金融危机再袭，能够应对危机的政策工具已经少了很多。

最后，2008年金融危机发生的时机在21世纪头10年全球经济高速发展之后，前10年发展的积累，对实体经济的冲击产生一定的缓和作 用；如果这次金融危机再次发生，则是在2008年经济衰退之后的3年，实体经济比当时要脆弱很多，失业率也要高出很多，因此对普通老百姓的冲击会更大。

很多人觉得，发生在欧美的金融危机可能和自己关系不大，比如新加坡的经济增长依然高于欧美诸国，失业率仅为2%，房价也节节攀升，似乎天 下太平。但经历过2008年危机的人们都会记得，当欧美经济陷入衰退的时候，海外订单可能会大幅缩水，各银行不得不大规模裁员，同时海外雇员很可能由于失 业，不得不回去他们的家乡，造成人去楼空的结果。因此即便经济危机由欧洲而起，但由于国际经济的相关性，新加坡几乎难以避免被波及。 Read the rest of this entry »

It all started from the black Monday in 1987, when Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 23% in one single day. The economic impact has not been contained within the stock market, however, as the black Monday crash was soon followed by a Saving and Loan crisis in the US and a spike of oil price after the beginning of the Gulf War, resulting in an 8 months long recession.

The central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve, reacted to the recession by slashing the interest rate from almost 10% to 3% during 1989 and 1992, along with other simulative policy in the hope that it will bring the economy back to the long term growth path. It seemed to have worked: US economy has started to recover with the Clinton government returning to budget surplus. The oil price has come down to modest level and the inflation in the US was successfully kept within comfortable levels. The phenomenal growth of Internet technology has hugely increased the productivity across all industries, and sparked the hope of an age of new economy coming.

The good days never last forever. The dot com bubble that burst in 2000 brought the zealous investors back to the reality. To be fair, the FED has already started to notice the heat of the economy before the 2000 peak of Nasdaq and begun to raise the interest rate gradually since the middle of 1999. Such a precautionary measure, however, has not prevented one of the world’s biggest stock market bubbles from bursting, which resulted in the first recession of US economy in the new century. Again the FED reacted by slashing rates aggressively from about 6% to 1.5% in 2 years, and the economy was brought back to the growth path again under this magic. In fact, the 2001 recession after the dot com bubble burst only lasted for 8 months, which is one of the shortest recessions in the history of US. Read the rest of this entry »

美国气象学家洛伦茨在60年代创造出了一个术语叫做蝴蝶效应，指的是在一个动态的系统中，一个微小的变动可能引起巨大的连锁反应。目前全球的金融市场用蝴蝶效应来概括就十分恰当。

故事要从美国说起。目前美国共和党和民主党两党就如何提高债务上限可谓闹得不可开交，几乎一天一变，每天都有新主张出台；同时时间不等人，财政部提出的最后底限越来越近，而金融市场的所有参与者似乎也不得不做好债券违约(Default)的准备。在常人看来这似乎是不可思议的，世界上最大的经济体，拥有AAA投资级别的国债，怎么可能有违约风险？

当然最新的发展是两党似乎已经达成了初步协议，即在接下来的一年中分两次逐步提高总额约2万亿美元的债务上限，因此在最后一刻避免了美国政府关门大吉和债券违约的风险。但是就是这样一个虚惊一场，却恰恰象蝴蝶效应中那只蝴蝶的轻轻一振，引起下面一系列反应。首当其冲的便是全球第二大经济体，中国。

中国和美国债务谈判的联系在于其巨额的外汇储备。据IMF最近的统计，中国政府持有约3万2千亿美元的外汇储备，位居全球第一。储备中的各种外币比重属于国家机密，但一般的猜测是其中60%-70%应该是美元。储备管理部门不可能坐拥美元现金，而主要的投资产品即美国国债。根据美国财政部最新的统计，截至今年5月份，中国政府持有大约1万2千亿美元左右的美国国债，雄踞外国国债持有者榜首。因此可想而知，美国国债市场有一点风吹草动，这边厢就不得不紧张起来。事实上即使美国国债贬值1%，对于中国政府来说也要损失120亿美元，实在是不能掉以轻心。 Read the rest of this entry »

美联储主席伯南克在上任前曾对日本经济做过大量研究，是这个领域少有的专家之一。伯南克在2002年发表的一篇演讲中曾提到日本的通缩问题，在演讲中伯南克认为日本的通缩问题并不是政府没有工具来应付，而是当时的各个团体只想着自己的利益不愿意作出任何牺牲，因此在政治上形成僵局，导致政府无法推出强有力的政策来解决这个困扰了日本多年的难题。

伯南克可能没有想到，自己在大约10年前提到的他国问题，会在10年后开始困扰自己。目前看来，美国一步一步迈向日本化的迹象越来越明显。在最近的两个月，美国两党为了提高债务上限进行的交锋拉扯引起了全球关注。虽然两党到最后达成了财政削减的共识，避免了在最后一分钟美债违约的尴尬局面，但是这其中的两党政治家为了各自的政治利益而不顾国家利益的角斗让人不得不担心，这个国家的政府是不是处在严重的分裂之中，从而无法做出任何需要决断力的决定。

当政府在财政政策上面受到各方肘制寸步难行的时候，伯南克领导的美联储可能不得不做出一些更大胆的尝试。自从08年金融危机以来，美联储已经先后两次祭出量化宽松的法宝，在公开市场上陆续买进了大约价值2万亿美元的美债，做出的努力不一定绝后，但绝对空前。可是市场并不太买账，自从今年6月份第二轮量化宽松(QE2)结束以来，美国的10年期国债殖利率从3%一路下降到2.6%左右，反映出债券市场对经济增长前景的悲观情绪。美国政府公布的第二季度GDP增长率仅为1.3%，相当令人失望，并且引发市场对美国是否会再次掉入经济衰退的深渊的极大担心。最近几个月的就业数据也相当不振，让人感觉似乎美联储的政策效果对提高就业率并没有大多实效。 Read the rest of this entry »

A lot has been discussed about the internationalization process of Renminbi. Such a need seems to be intensified recently as more problems are seen to emerge from the current major currencies in the world. The purchasing power of USD is in big worry as FED continues to show dovishness towards her monetary policy.  The second dominant currency, Euro, is in no better shape as the debt problems in the peripherals continues to jeopardize the survival of the common currency. Since China now plays an arguably more important role in international trading, a natural solution to the above weakness in USD and EUR is for RMB to be more used as an international currency. Recently, Central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan said that China will continue to move ahead in promoting the use of the yuan (RMB) as an international currency.

IT will be grossly over optimistic, however, to think that RMB is anywhere near to replace USD or Euro in the near future. The main reason is that it is probably not in the best interest of Chinese government to promote the internationalization of RMB despite their message in public. To understand this dynamic, one needs to start from the growth pattern of China’s economy.

For the past 20 years or so, China has achieved one of the fastest growth in terms of economic development in the world, with a heavy dependence on investment. During this period, investment has been the top contributor to China’s GDP growth, accounting for more than 40% of GDP growth on average. Both the extent and the length of such investment lead growth are unprecedented in post war history. Read the rest of this entry »