Investors should avoid reading international news coverage of China’s economy, a top Chinese securities regulator yesterday told a summit of global bankers in comments that received endorsement from two senior executives.
The advice was made by China Securities Regulatory Commission Vice Chairman Fang Xinghai (方星海) in a prerecorded interview that was broadcast to a summit in Hong Kong.
“I deal with international investors quite a lot in my daily work and I am afraid some of them have read too much the international media reports about events in China,” he said.
Photo: AFP
“A lot of media reports, let me put it this way, they really don’t understand China very well and they have a short term focus... Don’t read too much of international media,” he added.
Hong Kong is hosting a week of high-profile events after years of political unrest and COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions tarnished the territory’s business-friendly reputation, sparked an exodus of talent and battered its economy.
Senior executives from banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, UBS Group AG, HSBC Holdings PLC and Standard Chartered PLC are among those attending.
In a later panel discussion, UBS chairman Colm Kelleher backed Fang’s comments.
“Like Vice Chairman Fang said: We’re not reading the American press, we all buy the story,” he said.
Kelleher added that international bankers were “very pro-China” and watching closely as to whether the world’s second-largest economy would reopen.
Bank of China (中國銀行) president Liu Jin (劉金) also referenced Fang’s remarks in comments about China’s deeply indebted property market.
“Don’t worry too much. As Mister Fang said, don’t read too much negative reports,” he told delegates.
China is the last major economy committed to a “zero COVID-19” strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines. The measures have stamped out outbreaks, but created growing economic pain for local and international businesses.
Huge defaults have hit China’s property sector in the past 18 months, much of its revelations that were first reported on by international media.
Domestic media is state-controlled in China, and censorship is used to suppress negative stories or critical coverage.
Foreign media face intense restrictions, but have more leeway and are a conduit of information in a country where official economic data can sometimes be opaque.
In his comments, Fang told investors to “find out what’s really going on in China, and what’s the real intention of our government, by themselves.”
However, China has been largely cut off from the rest of the world for the past two years by pandemic travel controls. Beijing has yet to signal any timeframe for whether and when China might move away from its “zero COVID-19” controls.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”