Finance

China should focus on fighting deflationary pressure

Published

9 months ago

September 6, 2024

Yi Gang was governor of the People’s Bank of China from 2018 to 2023. He is pictured here speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, US, on Saturday, April 15, 2023.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SHANGHAI — China’s policymakers need to focus on boosting domestic demand, Yi Gang, former head of the People’s Bank of China, said Friday at the Bund Summit in Shanghai.

“I think right now they should focus on fighting the deflationary pressure,” Yi said, adding that “the key word is: how to improve domestic demand, how they can successfully deal with the situation of the real estate market as well as the local government debt problem, and influence the confidence of society.”

“At this point, proactive fiscal policy and accommodative monetary policy are important,” he said.

In contrast to high inflation in the U.S. and Europe, China’s consumer prices fell in 2023 and have only picked up marginally so far this year as domestic demand remains lackluster.

The latest CPI read, due out on Monday, is expected to tick up from 0.5% year-on-year growth in July to 0.70% in August, according economists polled by Reuters. That would still be only the fastest since February’s 0.7% CPI increase.

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Yi said he expected the consumer price index to “converge above zero by the end of the year,” while the producer price index would likely reach zero, after negative prints in recent months.

The core CPI, which strips out food and energy prices, rose by 0.4% in July from a year ago, down from 0.6% in June and May.

Yi was PBoC governor from March 2018 to July 2023. Pan Gongsheng is the current head of China’s central bank.

Zou Lan, director of the PBoC’s monetary policy department, told reporters Thursday the central bank still had room to lower the reserve requirement ratio, which determines the amount of cash banks need to have on hand. It is just one of the PBoC’s several monetary policy tools.

In July, Chinese policymakers announced major support for a trade-in policy to boost consumption. While central and local authorities have also taken steps to bolster the massive real estate market, sales and investment in new properties have still fallen.

“The challenge for Chinese policymakers is to manage the housing crisis, and to ensure that there is enough domestic demand to maintain the high level of economic growth,” Jeffrey J. Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told reporters Thursday.

“That is so important for the Chinese economy and for moving more and more people up to higher standards of living,” he said.

Contrast with Japan

Chinese consumption has remained lackluster since the pandemic. In the major cities of Beijing and Shanghai, retail sales fell by 3.8 % and by 6.1%, respectively, in July from a year ago, official data showed.

Major factors behind low consumer sentiment include uncertainty about future income and the wealth impact from the real estate market slump.

“Central banks should avoid prolonged deflation even if it is mild, that could affect wage determination,” Haruhiko Kuroda, former head of the Bank of Japan, said during the same panel session as Yi.

Kuroda pointed out that China’s current deflationary situation has been far shorter than what Japan faced. But he said that 15 years of deflation in Japan prevented wages from going up significantly, until the last year or two.

— CNBC’s Sonia Heng contributed to this report.

Finance

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Published

1 day ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

Finance

Swiss government proposes tough new capital rules in major blow to UBS

Published

1 day ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

A sign in German that reads “part of the UBS group” in Basel on May 5, 2025.

Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images

The Swiss government on Friday proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital, following its 2023 takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.

The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and carry out fewer share buybacks.

“The rise in the going-concern requirement needs to be met with up to USD 26 billion of CET1 capital, to allow the AT1 bond holdings to be reduced by around USD 8 billion,” the government said in a Friday statement, referring to UBS’ holding of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds.

The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.

“As well as reducing the likelihood of a large systemically important bank such as UBS getting into financial distress, this measure also increases a bank’s room for manoeuvre to stabilise itself in a crisis through its own efforts. This makes it less likely that UBS has to be bailed out by the government in the event of a crisis,” SNB said in a Friday statement.

‘Too big to fail’

UBS has been battling the specter of tighter capital rules since acquiring the country’s second-largest bank at a cut-price following years of strategic errors, mismanagement and scandals at Credit Suisse.

The shock demise of the banking giant also brought Swiss financial regulator FINMA under fire for its perceived scarce supervision of the bank and the ultimate timing of its intervention.

Swiss regulators argue that UBS must have stronger capital requirements to safeguard the national economy and financial system, given the bank’s balance topped $1.7 trillion in 2023, roughly double the projected Swiss economic output of last year. UBS insists it is not “too big to fail” and that the additional capital requirements — set to drain its cash liquidity — will impact the bank’s competitiveness.

At the heart of the standoff are pressing concerns over UBS’ ability to buffer any prospective losses at its foreign units, where it has, until now, had the duty to back 60% of capital with capital at the parent bank.

Higher capital requirements can whittle down a bank’s balance sheet and credit supply by bolstering a lender’s funding costs and choking off their willingness to lend — as well as waning their appetite for risk. For shareholders, of note will be the potential impact on discretionary funds available for distribution, including dividends, share buybacks and bonus payments.

“While winding down Credit Suisse’s legacy businesses should free up capital and reduce costs for UBS, much of these gains could be absorbed by stricter regulatory demands,” Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note preceding the FINMA announcement.

“Such measures may place UBS’s capital requirements well above those faced by rivals in the United States, putting pressure on returns and reducing prospects for narrowing its long-term valuation gap. Even its long-standing premium rating relative to the European banking sector has recently evaporated.”