Chinese Credit Crunch Probable Say Analysts

A credit crunch in China is “highly probable” this year as slowing economic growthprompts a surge in bad debts, Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicts.

Chinese president Xi Jinping this week trumpeted the “new normal” referring to slower growth as the government tries to rein in the credit boom – which has led to a debt pile of $26 trillion – and rebalance the economy from overly relying on exports and investment to consumer spending.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategists David Cui, Tracy Tian and Katherine Tai argue: “Few countries that had grown debt relative to GDP as fast as China did over the past few years escaped from a financial crisis in the form of significant currency devaluation, major banking sector recap, credit crunch and/or sovereign debt default (often a combination of these).”

The analysts believe that the government has unlimited resources to bail out banks and other organisations as the debts are mostly in renminbi, and the country’s central bank can always print more money.

They argue: “We suspect that the most likely scenario for China is a bad debt surge as growth slows, followed by a credit crunch in the shadow banking sector as investors become risk averse, and followed by a major financial system recap engineered by the government with the People’s Bank of China playing a central role.”

via The Guardian

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