China acts tough on banking industry violations
China's banking and insurance regulators handed out nearly 658 million yuan (about 94 million U.S. dollars) in fines in the first three quarters of this year, the Economic Information Daily reported Friday.
China's banking and insurance regulatory bodies at various levels gave 1,219 tickets to banking institutions in China, a nearly 40-percent decrease in fines from last year with the number of tickets basically unchanged.
The biggest share of the tickets went to credit and loan breaches, especially real estate loans, which incurred more tickets and larger fines than last year.
Real estate loan-related fines were estimated at around 100 million yuan, according to the report.
This year's heavy penalties showed that the government is clamping down on real estate credit breaches, said Yan Yuejin, an analyst at the Shanghai-based think tank E- house China R& D Institute.
The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has announced a slew of measures since August to prevent illegal financing to the real estate sector, including a targeted inspection on banks' property-related businesses in 32 cities and a reminder against local small-to-medium banks regarding ineligible property loan applicants.
The Agricultural Bank of China, Pingan Bank and Industrial Bank Co., Ltd. recently said they have restricted credit card usage in real estate transactions.
China will see its economic growth improve next year as industrial restructuring pays off, a New York-based business research group said on Thursday.
China's campaign to eliminate overcapacity has started to pay dividends and that will contribute a lot to the country's economic improvement, said Erik Lundh, a senior economist at The Conference Board.
He added that more productivity growth in the country will be seen over the next decade, mitigating the impact of continued GDP deceleration.
The world will likely see an economic growth of 2.5 percent in 2020, and an average of 2.7 percent for the next decade, down from 3.3 percent from 2010 to 2019, according to the outlook report.
"Even though recession fears are widespread, we expect some recovery in 2020 as China's overcapacity problem is being addressed, supply chains are getting restructured, the risk of an escalation of trade disputes recedes, and productivity growth continues to recover," said Bart van Ark, chief economist of the research group.
The 2020- 2029 average for advanced economies is estimated at 1.9 percent while the trend projection for emerging markets and developing economies combined is 3.5 percent, said the report.
Key factors determining the longterm growth potential of the global economy include trends in labor supply and migration, adoption of digital technologies, distribution of income, and multiple pressures on the environment and productivity growth, said the research group.
China's musical instruments sector is witnessing rapid growth, authorities said, with its market value accounting for nearly one-third of the world's total.
Last year, the value of the market reached 47 billion yuan (6.6 billion U.S. dollars), said the China Musical Instrument Association at the Music China 2019 expo, which opened Wednesday in Shanghai.
China boasted nearly 6,000 musical instrument manufacturers in 2018, with the industry's main business income reaching 54.1 billion yuan, the association said.
"The rapid transformation and upgrading of China's musical instrument manufacturing industry over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up have promoted the development of music education and the culture of instrumental music in the country," said Wang Shicheng, director of the China Musical Instrument Association.
Meanwhile, the continuous progress made in music education in China has also effectively boosted the growth of the domestic market, Wang said.