BIZCHINA> Center
China's rich, silver lining on turbulent global wealth market
By Cheng Yunjie (Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-01 14:25

Short-Term Shadow

China however is not completely immune to the unprecedented financial crisis. The 2008 China Rich List released Thursday by Forbes Chinese Edition revealed that the richest Chinese have suffered wealth loss unanimously this year.

Most of the losses, approximately 526.8 billion yuan ($77.24 billion) or down 20 percent from last year, came from the real estate, steel and export industries which seemed to have born the first brunt of the financial crisis.

As a result of the declining external demand coupled with the rising Yuan, a raft of small export-oriented factories in southern Guangdong Province have been closed down.

Liquidity crunch also caused some foreign companies to axe their investments in China while lingering fear over slowdown has eroded consumer confidence on home turf and already reduced the sales of big-ticket items such as automobiles.

To steer the economy that has recorded double-digit growth for years from recession, China's central bank has started to loosen credit in the last few months while the Ministry of Finance pumped heavy investment into the construction of infrastructure facilities such as railways.

Zhang Hanya, a researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission, said the recent adjustments would ease the credit crunch of many enterprises and would be conducive to sustaining consumption growth.

He held that the confidence of the Chinese economy was not only rooted in the huge fiscal revenues the country has accumulated over the past five years but also in the government's improving abilities to exercise macro-economic control.


(For more biz stories, please visit Industries)