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Wen Jiabao
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Beijing may ease controls to encourage investment

Wen Jiabao

Premier Wen Jiabao's pledge to do something 'noticeable' and 'inspiring' soon to revive investor confidence in the mainland's economy has China watchers deliberating over exactly what the government has in mind.

Their conclusion is that besides stepping up investments in various sectors, including steel, where there is already overcapacity, Beijing will unwind some of the tightening measures put in place to damp asset bubbles produced by its post-2008 stimulus package, and has already quietly loosened restraints on housing.

The previous round of pump priming had produced white elephant projects and left banks saddled with bad loans. The risk of another, albeit smaller, round of stimulus is that it may create more of the same, economists and others warn.

'Growth-stabilising policies include boosting consumption and diversifying exports, but currently, what is important is to promote a reasonable growth in investment,' Wen said in a statement posted on Tuesday on the government's website that detailed remarks he made last week to economists and entrepreneurs.

In those meetings, he called for improved implementation of guidelines to encourage private investment in industries including railways, energy and telecommunications as well as municipal infrastructure, health and education.

His remarks are the latest sign that Beijing is reverting to heavy reliance on investments to spur economic output - a quick fix, but a development model it vowed to change before Europe's debt crisis started to take a toll on the global economy.

'There is a low probability that fundamental reform measures will be effectively implemented in the near future,' said Ha Jiming, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs' investment management division for China. Instead, Ha said, 'it is highly likely the government will unwind explicitly and implicitly the tightening measures that have been introduced since 2010 ... Stability is the first priority. No growth, no stability.'

Beijing tightened lending and introduced curbs on the property market after a 4 trillion yuan (HK$4.92 trillion) stimulus package, aimed at combating the 2008 financial crisis, led to high inflation, soaring property prices, runaway debts in local governments and rising bad bank loans.

In April, the top leadership shifted its focus to 'stabilising growth', after the economy slowed to a three-year low of 8.1 per cent in the first quarter. Since then it has cut interest rates for the first time since 2008, encouraged banks to lend, quickened approvals for investment projects and issued policy guidelines to encourage private investment in some state-dominant industries such as railways, energy and telecommunications.

But implementing such private investment would be hard and would take time, Ha said, particularly when earnings at state-owned enterprises were falling sharply, as they are now.

He said stricter housing measures - in place for the past two years - were already quietly being loosened at local levels, notwithstanding central government rhetoric of maintaining the tightening stance.

Zhao Xijun, an economist at Renmin University in Beijing, expected the mainland to resume high-speed railway construction, which was stalled because of technology and management problems after a collision in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, last year killed at least 40 people.

As for private investments, Zhao said he expected the money to be directed towards developing urban road, subway and sewerage systems, expanding electricity generation capacity and grid construction in rural areas, providing value-added services to state telecommunications giants, and improving health care and education in underdeveloped areas.

Peng Wensheng, an economist at China International Capital, said Beijing was likely to loosen borrowing and spending restrictions on local government financing vehicles. 'The economic slowdown requires a proactive fiscal policy,' Peng said. 'The most effective way to stabilise aggregate demand is to increase infrastructure investment. The restrictions on the financing vehicles may be loosened to increase leverage.'

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