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HSBC Group Chairman Confident in China's Economy
China's economy has been extremely successful, its growth in 2000 was impressive, and in 2001 it will grow at least seven percent, Sir John Bond, HSBC group chairman said in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of the 34th PBEC International General Meeting held in Tokyo.
"If you look over the past 20 years in China, you can see how successfully the transition of the economy has been managed, and it will continue in the future," Sir John Bond said during the meeting, which was held from Sunday to Tuesday.
In his opinion, China's financial policy of opening its financial market gradually, step by step, is right. None of the mature market has a population of 1.3 billion people, China has no example to copy, but China can avoid mistakes made by mature markets.
He said that China is very important market for HSBC which wants to do more RMB business in China, but they also understand that China will open its market cautiously. Sir John Bond hoped that HSBC could get permission of setting up one branch in Chongqing this year.
For China's entry into WTO, Sir John Bond said that it is important for the world to have China into WTO. It's impossible to think of WTO without China's participation. WTO will bring some changes internally in China, he said.
He saw China has been making preparations for the entry of WTO such as legal framework, regulatory framework to comply to WTO. So he thinks the changes are manageable. He believed that for China the benefits of entering into WTO will surpass disadvantages in the long-term.
HSBC is one of the world's largest bank and financial service organization. It now has nine branches in Beijing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Wuhan and Xiamen. A sub-branch in Shanghai Puxi and representative offices in Chengdu and Chongqing, Southwest China. The Shanghai and Shenzhen branches started their RMB business in 1997 and 1998, respectively.
They provide services of funds-raising, trade service, export credit, loan, credit card, securities, on-line bank and ATM in China.
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