China's Financial Circles: Banks, Borrowers and the National Budget

**Due to space restrictions, this event has reached capacity and we will no longer be taking RSVPs. Please plan to arrive early as seating is on a first come, first serve basis.**

Since 2008 China's banks have made loans that approach 30% of GDP each year. The central bank has used a broader measure of credit, total societal financing, that suggests credit extended in 2011 may exceed 40% of the country's GDP. It is inevitable that such profligate lending will result in significant amounts of problem loans.  The international market is well aware of this and Chinese bank shares have been hit hard for most of this year. How will these bad loans be managed? More importantly, why has the government once again used China's ostensibly commercial banks as if they were policy banks and what are the implications of this for China's economy going forward?

Carl E. Walter worked in China and its financial sector for the past 20 years and actively participated in many of the country’s financial reform efforts. While at Credit Suisse First Boston he played a major role in China’s groundbreaking first overseas IPO in 1992, as well as the first primary listing of a state-owned enterprise on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994. He was a member of senior management at China International Capital Corporation, China’s first and most successful joint venture investment bank where he supported a number of significant domestic and international stock and bond underwritings for major Chinese corporations. More recently at JPMorgan he was China Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer of its banking subsidiary. During this time Carl helped build a pioneering domestic security, risk and currency trading operation.

A long time resident of Beijing before his recent return to the United States, Carl is fluent in Mandarin and holds a PhD from Stanford University and a graduate certificate from Peking University. He is the co-author of Red Capitalism: the fragile financial foundations of China’s extraordinary rise as well as Privatizing China: inside China’s stock markets. 

This event is part of the China's Looming Challenges series.