International Financial Center£ºWhat We Need Most?
|
| 1/15/2004 2:42:54 |
|
It is totally unnecessary for us to over emphasize on the possible competition among different cities. We should put our more views on: Firstly, cooperation is the mainstream among them. Without improvement of the whole environment, the international financial center is just a castle in the air; secondly, as for the difference of either jumping-off or result, the course of construction does not interfere with one another.
¡¡¡¡
A small action causes a big stir. As for the construction of the financial center, there are so many good plays recently. Shortly after Beijing ¡°Develop city by finance¡±, the Financial Street and CBD ¡°began to prepare their plays¡±. If together with ¡°the same idea¡± of Shanghai and Shenzhen, it seems to appear a situation of ¡°competition¡±.
¡¡¡¡Of course, according to the viewpoint of Li Yang, ¡°the understanding on the particularistic of the international financial center is wrong. Each city has its own characteristic. The three cities of China enjoy their respective advantages and they all have the possibility to develop into international financial centers with their own characteristics. It is an ¡®extremely conceited¡¯ ideology that only one city could become an international financial center.¡± Such open psychology is indeed necessary for the construction of the financial center.
¡¡¡¡However, the question is, as for the construction of the financial center, we need to see their respective advantages, but perhaps we further need to see their own disadvantages. On this question, a practical conclusion is: the international center is still far from us. Furthermore, the difficulty in it is overall, historic and systematic. With the conclusion, as we are planning a beautiful prospect for each city or even each district, we should hold a necessary prudent and practical attitude.
¡¡¡¡Wu Xiaoling, deputy president of the Central Bank, pointed out that for the shunted economy like China, the difficulties of the construction of international financial center will mainly incarnate in two aspects: one is the restriction of economic scale and the other is the restriction of system and environment. She believed that the economic scale is a product of economic development and cannot expand in one day, so we should put our focus on solving the systematic difficulty and creating a good environment. In addition, the settlement of the above-mentioned questions must be established in innovation of the system.
Moreover, Hu Zuliu made the question more concrete. He concluded the restrictive factors as follows: the capital cannot flow freely among different countries; the financial system is not so advanced and unbalanced in development; the framework of rule of law and supervision is unsound, the tax rate is too high; it is in short of information freely spread; and RMB cannot exchanged freely. As for which, his suggestion is to open the market, so as to introduce international advanced experience; technologies and the best traditions and enable the domestic market to connect with the world.
¡¡¡¡Through the above-mentioned analysis, we could understand that on the construction of the financial center, either innovation or openness is an important condition valid everywhere. In the meantime, as the incarnation of capability and cognition, we should put the consideration of them into a dynamic and continuous process.
¡¡¡¡From the view of the international experience, a series of history of rise and decline of the cities is enough to prove the regularity of the above-mentioned viewpoints.
¡¡¡¡Herein, perhaps we could make such a conclusion: as for the detailed cities inland, no matter what level and function of financial center they are orienting and aiming at, the difference of jumping-off and path between them would not conflict with the same disadvantages they are facing, and they need the same methods to eliminate the difference. The successful city is unnecessarily only one, but it must well achieve the above point.
¡¡¡¡Therefore, we should talk about the question with a practical attitude. It is totally unnecessary for us to over emphasize the possible competition between different cities. We should put our more views on: Firstly, cooperation is the mainstream among them. Without improvement of the whole environment, the international financial center is just a castle in the air; secondly, as for the difference of either jumping-off or result, the course of construction does not interfere with one another.
¡¡¡¡Of course, we neither obliterate the objective existence of the comparative advantages of difference among various cities, nor have any intention to blazon forth the theory of ¡°Freely compete and spontaneous formation¡± of the financial center. As for the former point, what the writer means is that even for the domestic financial center, it should be authenticated with a global visual field. A close and undynamic market does not concern about whether a financial center exists or not; as for the latter point, the foreign experience showed that since the mid of 1970s, it has been gradually abandoned of the method of ¡°allowing unrestrained freedom¡± by the government at the early establishment period of international financial center. However, whether ¡°Develop city by finance¡± or ¡°Develop country by finance¡±, the investment of governmental resources and policy resources itself is a distributing process that is carried out according to the capability of different cities, and also a market activity that is performed with the urban development.
¡¡¡¡Therefore, we believe that on the basis of the basic national situation of ¡°shunted together with innovated¡±, either for Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen, the moderate competition among them is necessary. But during the process of competition, the more important is to use a cooperative attitude to jointly make the cake bigger and better and improve their own strength by emulating, learning from, catching up with and in turn surpassing each other. After all, we are just starting the construction of the financial center.
4. CBD financial service industry, is it still in need of the east wind of policies?
Do you feel that Beijing CBD is becoming more and more similar as Manhattan CBD? Manhattan lies in the center of New York, while Beijing CBD also occupies the same important geographical position; the famous New York Times at 43# West Street, Manhattan is located in the central area of Manhattan, while the new location of CCTV is also standing in Beijing CBD; the financial center Wall Street in Manhattan CBD enjoys an awe-inspiring fame, while recently Beijing CBD is also throwing out its determination on greatly developing finance industry.
¡¡¡¡More media began to closely observe the contest of international financial center between Beijing and Shanghai. They seem to identify good or bad out of Beijing and Shanghai. In the meantime, on the 4th Beijing Chaoyang International Business Festival opening on October 9, people noticed that the topics of the festival obviously began to emphasize particularly on accelerating the development of financial service industry of Beijing CBD. Together with the previous ¡°warm-up¡± by various social institutions, non-governmental groups and news media, the discussion came to the surface once more on that Beijing CBD is planning to become an international financial center.
¡¡¡¡According to the reports of the media, on the ¡°Press Conference of Several Measures on Accelerating the Development of Finance Industry of Beijing CBD¡±, Chen Gang, acting director of Chaoyang District ¡°specially pointed out¡± that Chaoyang District will particularly develop the function of international financial service, but not establish a financial center. Perhaps, as for the development of the finance industry of Beijing, the fame of ¡°center¡± is not so important today. More importantly, what is impeding the course of developing financial service industry by Beijing CBD today? The answer is warm-up.
¡¡¡¡From the view of today, it has been under a long-term consideration that Beijing wanted to accelerate the development of financial service industry, which included the governmental efforts on unrestricting the relevant policies and the influential appeal from the non-governmental groups. Of course, it cannot do without the attention and warm discussion of the media.
¡¡¡¡On Beijing Municipality Symposium on Financial Work held at the beginning of March 2003, it was released that the concerned departments of Beijing were beginning to improve the financial environment of Beijing. The detailed measures probably included establishing Beijing Bill Business Market, strengthening the management on the securities and futures market, encouraging the foreign-owned insurance enterprises to establish institutions in Beijing, etc. At that time, many measures were still on the level of declaration by relevant departments, but it could show the determination that Beijing was intending to promote the development of the financial service industry.
¡¡¡¡Thereinafter, in September some media guessed with some mystic color that Wang Qishan, acting mayor with financial work experience, would increase the development strength of the financial industry in Beijing. It was released by the well-informed persons that the two focuses Wang Qishan would concern most in his future work includes: one is transportation and the other is to develop the finance industry of Beijing. Therefore, some media believe that combined with Beijing¡¯s position in the bond market, one of the most important tasks for Mr. Wang is to develop Beijing¡¯s position as a financial center depending on bonds.
¡¡¡¡Almost at the same time, Strategic Study Report on the Development of the Capital¡¯s Finance Industry, a report out of the folk, evoked a big repercussion inside the industry of finance. As the core viewpoints, the report confirmed the unique advantages of Beijing for developing finance industry and proposed the ideology and goal of ¡°Developing city by finance¡± and ¡°Constructing international financial center¡± for Beijing. The degree of attention received by the repost could be released from the reports of media around the end of September 2003. There is a rumor that the institution that wrote the report enjoys certain governmental background. The report aroused the attention of the concerned leaders and departments in charge of the government to a certain extent.
¡¡¡¡Meanwhile, the discussion on which city would become the financial center among Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong or whether China needed many financial centers has blotted out the sky and covered up the earth by various media.
¡¡¡¡The 3rd Beijing Chaoyang International Business Festival held last year particularly incarnated the interactive effect between the local economy and finance industry. In the total contract amount of 59.9 billion RMB, the investment from the banking industry amounted for 90%. Meanwhile, 17 domestic and foreign financial institutions and 21 key projects participated in the CBD international financial service exhibition during the business festival. The 4th festival seemed not to take the project introduction as its priority, but lost no time to set the topic as developing financial service industry of Beijing CBD. The background for which is that as early as May 2003, the Planning Commission of Chaoyang District respectively entrusted some experts of the central bank and Beijing WTO affairs Study Center to make two study reports. After comprehensively analyzing the two reports, the Commission thought there were 5 major advantages on developing international financial center in CBD and suggest implementing the program.
¡¡¡¡Then what is the barrier for Beijing to develop finance industry? Tantang Yuli, partner of PwC said, ¡°with China¡¯s entrance to WTO and signing of the agreement on more closely trade and commercial relations between China and Hong Kong, the central government should make a series of new measures and loose the control, for example, further loose the control in the aspect of finance, so as to make the market more open.¡± Status quo.
¡¡¡¡Mai Tianhui, president of Standard Chartered Bank China invested to the 4th Beijing Chaoyang International Business Festival, thought that Beijing has not completely possessed the conditions of international financial center, which is hard to avoid disappointing the experts and insiders of the industry that believe Beijing is only ¡°existing in reality but not in name¡± in the aspect of construction of international financial center. Mai Tianhui also affirmed the good developing trend of Beijing¡¯s finance industry. So under what is the present developing situation of Beijing¡¯s finance industry?
¡¡¡¡From the whole situation of 2002, the business cycle situation of investment, public economy and finance of Beijing kept stable. According to the data from Beijing Statistics Bureau, in 2002, the finance of Beijing was operating smoothly and the deposit and loan as well as receipts and disbursements of the financial institutions all enjoyed a coordinated growth.
¡¡¡¡From the contribution to GDP, in 2001, Beijing¡¯s whole finance industry realized an added value of 43.02 billion RMB, which accounted for 15.3% of the GDP; in 2002, the production value of finance industry reached 48.5 billion RMB, which accounted for 15.5% of the GDP.
¡¡¡¡Under the stable background of the business cycle situation, many people noticed that the headquarters of many financial institutions are moving out of Beijing. On May 19, 2003, Harvest Fund Management Co., Ltd formally left Beijing for Shanghai. Thus, there was only one left of the 8 fund management companies ever choosing Beijing.
¡¡¡¡In addition, some insiders of the industry show their worry about the exchange situation in the capital market. It was released by some analyzers that among the current over 300 companies controlled by the personages of the business circle, there are only more than 30 operating locally in Beijing, and the operation centers of more companies are located in the other areas.
¡¡¡¡In fact, the advantage is very obvious for Beijing to build financial center: Beijing is not only the birthplace of financial control policies, but also the place gathering most of the financial institution headquarters. Some insiders of the industry think that what will indeed become barrier for Beijing to develop financial service industry is the degree of looseness of the financial policy system. Because the guide of policies of the central government has been inclined to Shanghai again and again, which has been approved for building international financial center, some media said that Lujiazui made Beijing feel some kind of crisis. More importantly, as we are talking about the question today, the gap between Beijing and Shanghai is becoming wide on the relevant favorable policies and environment of development for finance industry.
¡¡¡¡Mai Tianhui thought, the four conditions for building international financial center included advanced economy, sound capital market, law system that could ensure normal operation of market, as well as experienced financial jobholders. Expectation
¡¡¡¡On October 9, when the 4th Beijing Chaoyang International Business Festival was opened, the accessory policies for developing finance industry in Beijing CBD were formally issued, the measures of which included reducing the operational cost, establishing and perfecting the system of social credit, strengthening services for and communication with the financial institutions, providing the financial institutions with a good external environment, etc.
¡¡¡¡In July, a report drafted by Beijing Finance Industry Commission was submitted to Beijing Municipal Party Committee on attracting financial enterprises to settle in Beijing. It was said, ¡°The main content of the report is to provide a series of favorable policies for the financial enterprises that are coming to Beijing.¡± Furthermore, those policies in the report are not behind those of Shanghai or Shenzhen on either quantity or favorable degree.
¡¡¡¡The concerned departments in charge have realized the importance of a favorable and loose environment of policies. The Planning Commission of Chaoyang District has worked out the relevant documents on the favorable policies for developing finance industry and is planning to ¡°borrow east wind¡± from Beijing municipal government and various ministries and commissions.
¡¡¡¡Of course, the following question is whether those policies are symptomatic. The Mayor Forum on CBD Development held on the afternoon of October 9 invited Ms Virginia Fields, governor of Manhattan District of America, and Yang Jianrong, deputy governor of Pudong New District of Shanghai, the aim of which was very clear: to learn from the successful experience of Wall Street and Lujiazui and serve for Beijing to greatly promote the development of financial service industry.
¡¡¡¡Following the two honorable guests, Ms Tantang Yuli, Li Xiangwei, president of China ABN AMRO Bank Investment Management Co., Ltd, and other personages of the business circles, from their own experiences and interests, spoke out their pressing experience and expectation of the finance industry and service industry.
¡¡¡¡At the end of her speech, Ms Tantang Yuli put forward, ¡°all the investors or the companies in the CBD need professional services. At each phase of the development of their companies and individuals they all need such services: before companies enter a country, they need to know the local laws and the best investing means; at the primary phase of establishing a companies, they need to know what are the procedures and barriers for the establishment, as well as what is the scale of the new company allowed and whether there is any limit in this aspect.¡±
¡¡¡¡It is introduced by the authoritative experts that such limits mainly include the legal limits arisen from incomplete openness of Chinese finance industry after entrance to WTO faced by the foreign-owned financial institutions. For example, the investment banks cannot underwrite the domestic securities; most of foreign-owned banks are not qualified for dealing with the business of RMB and cannot directly trade with Chinese-owned enterprises, etc.
¡¡¡¡Li Xiangwei made a point that the financial enterprises and CBD enjoy a relationship of mutual requirement and long-term development.¡± CBD has a specific requirement for the financial enterprises. Because the financial service industry is an important component of CBD, without financial enterprises, the structure of the CBD will probably not be so integrated. While choosing CBD, the financial enterprises will always fix their priority of attention on the hardware quality, traffic situation, price factors and so on.¡±
At present, the CBD Administration Commission together with the higher departments in charge is pressing on with issuance and implementation of the measures and policies relating to the construction of CBD hardware. We also expect the structure of industries in CBD to get adjusted. In Beijing, especially in CBD, there is no lack of advantages trained by history on developing financial service industry. Currently, the soft environment of policies that is crucial to developing the financial service industry becomes the first expectation for the financial institutions and enterprises.
|
|
|
