China went on a charm offensive with world financial leaders at the G20 meeting in Shanghai, seeking to shore up confidence in the globe's second largest economy and find agreement on getting global growth back on track.
Finance ministers and central bank governors at a two-day meeting in China’s financial capital are seeking improved policy coordination on how to cope with the flagging world economy and widespread market turmoil.
"While the reform direction is clear, managing the reform pace will need windows of opportunity and conditions … China will strike a balance between growth, restructuring and risk management," said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC).
The summit takes place against a backdrop of global worries about China’s ability to manage turmoil in its domestic markets and pressures on its yuan currency and to implement wider restructuring reforms.
Speaking at a conference held by the Institute of International Finance (IIF), which was running in tandem with the G20 meeting, Zhou reassured the leaders that China would not stage another devaluation of its yuan currency to support the economy.
“While the reform direction is clear...the pace will vary, but the reform will be set to continue and the direction is not changed,” said Zhou. “China still has some monetary policy space and tools to answer potential downside risks.”
China reported economic growth of 6.9 per cent for 2015, its weakest level in 25 years, although still a rate that seems sufficient to generate employment.
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which this week called for a coordinated stimulus programme to support a slowing global economy, said reform was crucial to success in every G20 economy, not just China's.
“In this fragile environment, we need urgent action not only to boost economic potential, but also to boost confidence about the recovery and near-term growth,” she said.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was keen to deflect attention from the possibility of more stimulus to boost global growth, as happened at the G20 in Shanghai in 2009 when China's infrastructure-based stimulus plan helped the world economy recover from the global financial crisis.
He said there was no way of avoiding reform if the real economy was to grow.
“Talking about further stimulus just distracts from the real tasks at hand. We therefore do not agree on a G20 fiscal stimulus package,” said Schaeuble.
Schaeuble believes there is a lot of monetary stimulus in the system, as monetary policy was extremely accommodative, even to the point of being counterproductive in terms of negative side effects on banks, policies and growth.
“The debt financed growth model has reached its limits. It is even causing new problems, raising debt, causing bubbles and excessive risk taking, zombifying the economy,” said Schaeuble.
“Clearly, today, the indebtedness of the private and public sector, including the high leverage of banks and households, as well as a lack of structural reforms, hinder sustainable growth,” he said.
Commentator Wu Xia wrote in an editorial on the official Xinhua news agency that China was keen to communicate to the world its economic reality at home and outline the steps it plans to take to reform its economy “in a bid to dissipate misguided doubts over the country’s economic prospects.”
“From currency management to overcapacity problems, China has its work cut out for it in order to convince pessimists about the country’s economic health. That alone will be a big contribution to global growth and financial stability,” Wu wrote. The implications of Britain leaving the EU will also feature in discussions.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned against getting embroiled in a currency war by pushing interest rates too low, saying targeting weaker exchange rates only causes problems for the world economy.
“It is critical that stimulus measures are structured to boost domestic demand, particularly from sectors of the economy with healthy balance sheets,” Carney said in a speech. “There are limits to the extent to which negative rates can achieve this.”
Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said the Chinese economy had lot of tough issues ahead.
“The space is evolving and changing and countries keep delaying their necessary reform agenda and that might undermine the space for the reform, so they might be standing at the edge of a cliff and have two options - either you fall over the cliff, or you push forward a very painful reform process,” said Lou.
“A person might fall off the cliff, but I don’t think a country will fall off the cliff, so we have no option but to push forward the painful reform process, the sooner the better.”
(Additional reporting agencies)
