The Great Debate

– Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own —

It is hard to be very optimistic about China’s proposed stock market for start-up companies. After all, similar attempts in other countries have a decidedly mixed track record. Why would China, where small private companies face an uphill battle against state-owned firms, be any exception?

Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that the start-up market, set to debut in October, offers better potential than previous efforts in Singapore, Germany and Hong Kong.

The country has a big reservoir of fast-growing small companies with real profits. In the past, they have opted for listing on foreign exchanges such as the Nasdaq. Though they were attracted by the prestige of a foreign listing, they also faced a home market that favors size over quality.

Indeed, China, home of internet stars such as Baidu and Sina, is the second-largest foreign supplier of companies to the Nasdaq.

– Neal Kimberley is an FX market analyst for Reuters. The opinions expressed are his own –

Twenty-four years ago, major nations called for depreciation of the dollar to rebalance the global economy. Now, as another effort at rebalancing looms, the dollar will again bear the brunt — though officials will try to ensure its fall is less dramatic this time.

That’s the implication of President Barack Obama’s announcement this week that he will push world leaders for a new global “framework” in which the United States would cut its huge trade and budget deficits.

(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

The simplest way to end the imbalances in the world’s economy is also sadly perhaps the most likely: for the Chinese to stop buying U.S. debt.

This is not going to happen anytime soon, for one thing deleveraging in the U.S. will for a time make U.S. Treasuries look good value, but a buyer’s strike is a heck of a lot more likely than the orchestrated rebalancing the U.S. will push at this week’s G-20 meeting of leading nations.

The U.S. plans to advance a plan at the Pittsburgh summit to fundamentally change the balance of the global economy, which over the past 15 years or so has been characterized by over-borrowing and consumption in the West provided and financed by savers and workers in Asia.

- Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. -

The U.S.-China tire dispute threatens to spill into other sectors and squeeze Chinese exporters’ already razor-thin margins further. It might seem mind-boggling to many that Chinese manufacturers are still hanging on to weak overseas markets even though the domestic economy looks much healthier and surely offers more potential.

But there are structural reasons why the grass is greener outside China. The risk of not getting paid, or getting paid late, is significantly lower when dealing with foreign buyers. The cost of international shipping has dropped so much that it can be cheaper to send goods over the Pacific Ocean than across the country.

In addition, selling to large buyers such as Wal-Mart creates volumes large enough to compensate for weak margins. Moreover, Chinese exporters get all sorts of export rebates and local government incentives which help to lower their costs.

–James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own–

If and when China makes its currency convertible and opens its financial system the stage will be set for a bubble that should make the dotcom and housing booms look tame.

China has recently signaled its key aspirations: for a greater international role for the renminbi and for Shanghai to become a great financial capital. Neither is imminent, but both imply, if not require, a series of steps that, taken in combination with China’s legitimately great potential for growth, could lead to a bubble of magnificent and dangerous proportions.

— Rafael Ramírez is the James Martin Senior Research Fellow in Futures at Oxford University and author of “Business Planning for Turbulent Times: New Methods for Applying Scenarios” edited with John W. Selsky and Kees van der Heijden. Ramírez attended a session at the World Economic Forum’s gathering in Dalian, China, on managing global risks.

Reuters asked Ramírez to elaborate on five overlooked risks the world is confronting as it works its way through the current recession. His response is below. The views expressed are his own.

Risk one: Confusing risk with uncertainty

The first — and perhaps most important risk — is confusing categories of ignorance. This most centrally is about confusing risk with uncertainty. It entails pretending that probability (with data sets of past events with distributions of occurrence which are relevant for the future) is relevant for both “known unknowns” one cannot model with probability as well as unknown unknowns in one’s plausible futures where no data set is available, such as those of unique events.

–James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.–

Financial markets have plenty to be worried about but their latest concern — a trade war between the United States and China — should not be on the list.

Aligned self interest and a knowledge on both sides of the causes of the Great Depression should limit matters to a kind of trade war Kabuki, a highly stylized piece of theatre in which the United States shakes its fist and China responds in kind but no blows land.

– Aron Cramer is president and CEO of BSR, a global business network and consultancy focused on sustainability. The views expressed are his own. —

As the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” meeting in Dalian, China, gets underway, it is a bit chilling to think back to how the financial crisis was unfolding in real time during last year’s event.

As the 1,000 leaders gathering for this year’s event spend three days debating how to restore economic growth and social stability, the need to focus on a long-term transition to a more sustainable economy is clearer than ever.

– Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

The fate of Yahoo Inc has become intertwined in the public’s imagination with the success or failure of its dealings with Microsoft Corp in recent years.

That’s despite the fact that as much as 70 percent of the value investors put on Yahoo’s depressed shares are tied up in its international assets or cash holdings — factors that have nothing to do with Microsoft.

– Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own —

Chinese banks are like enthusiastic runners on an accelerating treadmill. The weakening economy means poor lending decisions are threatening to catch up with them, but the banks are sprinting ahead by expanding their loan books ever faster. They cannot keep this up for ever.

For now things still look fine. China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) this week claimed that Chinese banks were managing credit risk sagely, pointing to record low non-performing loan ratios. Given the massive increase in the number of loans outstanding — up 24 percent since the start of the year — it’s not surprising that the proportion of them that are non-performing at large commercial banks, which accounts for 60 percent of the lending, has declined from 2.4 percent to 1.8 percent in the past six months.