China, the Party and Its Banks

Speaker:    Dr. Carl E. Walter, Author of “Red Capitalism”

Moderator:  Michael Harris, President of Finance, Ambow Education

Until China began its highly successful reform effort in 1978, banks as institutions hardly existed, they were mostly a channel to provide funding to state enterprises. Yet after the economic reform in the 1980s, there was a rush of banking privatization and this enthusiasm to drive economic growth led to excessive bank lending and high rates of inflation in the 1990s. Following the Asian Financial Crisis and the collapse of Guangdong International Trust and Investment Co., a single party committee for each of the big state banks was created. The objective was to build relatively independent banking institutions with centralized management structures, thus forming special bond between the Party and Banks in China. Dr. Walter will discuss the modern evolution of China’s banks and the challenges in transiting to a more open, consumption-based model of economic development.

Carl E. Walter has worked in China′s financial sector for the past 20 years, participating in many of the country's financial reforms. He played a major role in China′s groundbreaking first overseas IPO in 1992 as well as the first listing of a state–owned enterprise on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994. He held a senior position in China′s first joint venture investment bank where he supported a number of significant domestic stock and debt underwritings for major Chinese corporations and financial institutions. More recently, he helped build one of the most successful and profitable domestic security, risk and currency trading operations for a major international investment bank. He holds a PhD from Stanford University and a graduate certificate from Beijing University.