Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The dragon rises

"...The low-key ceremony that marked the launch of China Investment Corp. this weekend could reflect the cautious manner in which Beijing intends to unleash the largest fund in history onto the world's financial markets.

The much-anticipated corporation will be in charge of 200 billion dollars -- nearly one-sixth the nation's enormous forex reserves -- but it will not flaunt its wealth, observers said.

"They're going to be passive investors. They're going to take minority shares. And the most important thing is going to be safety," said Chen Xingdong, Beijing-based chief economist at BNP Paribas.

China Investment Corp. is tasked with diversifying and maximising returns on part of the country's huge forex reserves, topping 1.3 trillion dollars and growing by the second.

[ ... ]

Even so, behind the intentionally cautious attitude, there is little doubt among observers that this is a creature with the power to rock world markets.

"The company will be a formidable force on the global financial market. The fund will be the largest of its kind in the world," said He Fan, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a Beijing-based think tank.

The emergence of China Investment Corp., he said, was part of a tectonic inter-continental, inter-generational shift in the world economy.

The nations of the west are now becoming ageing societies, and have to sell out of some of the assets they have accumulated in the past..."

[ full article ]

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