Privatising China - Inside China's Stock Markets (2nd Edition)

Privatising China - Inside China's Stock Markets (2nd Edition)

by Carl E. Walter and Fraser J.T. Howie

John Wiley & Sons, HK$488

Those at last week's popular CLSA Investor Forum at the Grand Hyatt will have heard from Fraser Howie, co-author with Carl Walter of Privatising China - Inside China's Stock Markets, now out in its second and extensively revised edition. The authors admit that the first edition was written with an optimism based on Deng Xiaoping's promise that marvellous things would happen to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. But although China has boomed, 'the stock market together with the securities industry itself collapsed'. Privatising China loses none of its credibility for that ('stock markets cannot be successfully adapted to an economy lacking private property and dominated in all important aspects by agencies of the government'). It's the most comprehensive guide to negotiating the world of Chinese shares and securities. The authors make effective use of the economist's toolbox to explain the inexplicable. One colleague who daily handles analysis about China's economy says Howie is 'probably one of the very few who understands the distinction between the A- and B-share markets and much else besides'.