2008-02-12

Roach's Canaries in Beijing

Subprime: Canary in a Coal Mine?
January 31, 2008

Stephen Roach

"Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach and Mary Meeker both recently presented at the Caijing Magazine Annual Conference in Beijing.

The conference - a leading forum on the Chinese economy - addressed the major challenges and opportunities for China in 2008.

Roach kicked off his remarks by providing a comparision between the dotcom bubble burst of 1999 and the recent subprime mortgage crisis; he then focused on trends in global consumerism and the myth of Asia decoupling. He explored the challenges facing a growing China, as well as the increase in protectionism and currency risks that are playing out with Asia economic expansion."


right click to download - a very insightful set of charts.

2 comments:

Leona said...

Roach is going to give a speech at HK on Feb 27....

bobby fletcher said...

I'm nos sure what is China's exposure to sub-prime mortgage really:

- Domestically MO for home ownership and purchase is very different for the Chinese, and I suspect there's really no such thing as good/bad loans - they are all goopd/bad in some sense.

- US subprime shouldn't have a *direct* impact on China. Indirect yes, but as I recall the Beijing didn't jump when HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson visited last year to push MBS.