US Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, touring the village of Mulan in Sichuan Province to promote "financial modernization," urged China on Thursday to take lessons from the US on how to spend more, borrow more and save less.
Snow argued that China's consumers and entrepreneurs are badly in need of financial sophistication offered by US banks and investment banks.
As he wandered through a thriving farmers' market and a traditional rural credit cooperative, Snow said that with better credit, Chinese families would be able to spend more money, buy more goods and perhaps reduce China's huge trade surplus with the US.
"Good credit facilitation and consumer finance is going to help consumers buy more things," Snow said. "We see consumerism and consumer credit as going directly to the thing we have most on our minds -- the global imbalances."
It has been an awkward lecture at times, given that China's economy is still growing at a blistering pace of 9 percent, is a huge magnet for foreign investors and is one of the US' biggest creditors.
China's savings rate is nearly 50 percent, one of the highest rates in the world. The savings rate in the US, by contrast, has sunk to less than zero in recent months and is one of the lowest rates in the world.
Chinese leaders have already told US officials in the last year that they needed to get their own house in order by reducing their fiscal budget deficits.
The Chinese leaders are also keenly aware of the debate within the US about the rising use of risky new types of home mortgages to finance homes that people would otherwise not be able to afford.
also see story:
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
Another tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG (liquefied natural gas) 2 project has docked in a Chinese port, ship-tracking data showed, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) tracking data indicated the Russian Voskhod LNG tanker was anchored at an LNG terminal in the port of Tieshan in Guangxi, China. The Russian flagged tanker, with a cargo of 150,000 cubic meters of LNG, was loaded up at the Arctic LNG 2 facility in Gydan in northern Siberia on July 19, LSEG data showed.
RSS