Welcome to China Business News, NEO’s weekly roundup of top business developments as reported by news outlets in China and the region.
This week’s highlights:
- Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said the global economy will face a recession and a decline in power consumption, in an article published for the company’s internal conference. He added that Huawei should change its thinking and business policy to switch from expansion to pursuing profits and cashflow in order to ensure that it will survive the crisis in the next three years. Zhengfei said that Huawei cloud computing would step down to support the development of Huawei’s business, and would take the road to support the Internet industry instead. Huawei will also focus on increasing investment, research and development of smart car solutions to secure its survival through the difficult years ahead. (First Financial)
- The governor of the People’s Bank of China held a financial forum focused on the stability of total loan growth, after the country’s central bank trimmed its five-year loan prime rate to 4.30% from 4.45% and its one-year loan prime rate to 3.65% from 3.70% Forum participants included financial institutions such as the National Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank, Agricultural Bank, Bank of China, Construction Bank and Postal Savings Bank. In the period from January-July this year, new RMB loans amounted to 14.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 516.1 billion yuan year-on-year. But monthly new loans fluctuated widely, with the end-of-quarter surge in March and June followed by a sharp drop in the size of new loans in April and July. The discussion centered on current economic stabilization, which is a key issue for all financial circles in China. Chinese state-owned banks were asked to strengthen their macro-thinking and work to ensure the stability of total loans growth. (Caixin)
- Though China halted its relations with the U.S. on a range of issues, including talks on climate change earlier this month, it declared its commitment to continue joint work on the climate change agenda. The country’s central bank recently included Deutsche Bank (China) and Société Générale (China) in the scope of financial institutions for carbon emission reduction support tools. This move reflects that China attaches great importance to the green transformation, always insists on opening up to the outside world, treats foreign financial institutions equally, gives them national treatment and supports their prosperity and development in China. In the next step, the People’s Bank will also consider including other foreign financial institutions that are willing and qualified to bring into play their advantages in the field of green finance and help China’s economy go low-carbon. (The Economic Observer)