GOVERNOR CHEN REVEALS BEIJING'S BANKING PLANS
When China veered towards hyperinflation two years ago, Deng Xiapong called upon one of the toughest troubleshooters around: a 63-year-old lady named Chen Muhua.
Chen, governor of the People's Bank of China, has succeeded in regaining control of her nation's financial system, just as she succeeded at previous assignments: keeping Hanoi supplied with arms during the Vietnam War and implementing a one family, one child solution to Chinese overpopulation. And now she is striving to reshape China's financial system into a more modern, market-oriented form.
Earlier this summer, Chen granted a unique, uncensored interview to Euromoney Editor Neil Osborn in Beijing. For more than an hour Chen spoke freely of her fears and hopes and plans. No other western publication has ever been so privileged.
Chen used the interview partly to disclose important new information--she disclosed plans to establish a new communications bank, for example (this appears to be an extension of the existing Bank of Communications, one of the Hong Kong institutions long owned by China, into the mainland). She hinted that new local banks might appear in China in the foreseeable future. And part of Chen's purpose was to hammer home to Euromoney's audience the administration's commitment to reform and to opening China to more foreign investment.