A4
Opinion
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2017
mst.daydesk@gmail.com
Adelle Chua, Editor
GLOBAL INVESTORS NEED TO SEE MORE FROM CHINA REFORMS
EDITORIAL
By David Millhouse
TAKEAWAYS
I
T WILL be business as usual for offices and schools, not to mention roads, tomorrow after more than 260 meetings of the Asean Summit concluded last week.
The country did gain many things aside from respite from routine and curious stories about a former beauty queen removing traffic cones on Edsa to get to the fast lane and then bragging about it on social media, or about a blogger who vented her ire at a BBC reporter just because she did not land an interview with the network. Hosting the summit was no mean feat. And for every person wanting to call attention to himself or herself there are hundreds more who worked quietly and without fanfare to ensure the event goes as seamlessly as possible. Innumerable man hours were put into making logistical preparations for the meetings and for the delegates, and into providing leg work for the high-level, inprinciple discussions made by the leaders.
NEXT year will mark the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up initiated by Deng Xiaoping, and it’s as vital as ever that the government pushes harder and faster on structural changes. While recent announcements regarding the financial industry are encouraging, for the global investment community to more fully embrace China, progress is still needed on important areas as diverse as stateowned enterprises and healthcare. China is at the point where it can no longer rely on monetary stimulus and fiscal spending to support longerterm growth. People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan recently warned that further reform and opening-up are key to proactively controlling systematic risks in the nation’s financial sector. To that end, reform announcements have picked up. Late last week the government removed foreign ownership limits on banks while allowing overseas firms to take majority stakes in local securities ventures, fund managers and insurers. The government also announced it will test a plan to allow foreign automakers to set up wholly-owned electric-vehicle businesses in China’s free-trade zones, as well as permit foreign companies to set up factories without a domestic partner to make utility vehicles. And, there have been other measures announced. Going into the start of his second term as Chinese President Xi Jinping promised that China would take “big strides in reform” in coming years, and there are several areas that need further progress. In terms of capital markets, the Ministry of Finance this week continued to waive individual investors’ capital gains taxes for trades done through the trading link between stock exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong. The decision should help continue to expand the two-way trading volumes between the Chinese and Hong Kong markets. Another speculated about move could be more significant. Local media reported that Beijing is looking at some domestic firms listed in Hong Kong for the proposed non-tradable share reform. Longer term, this move could improve liquidity of the Hong Kong market, as well as facilitate closing the valuation gaps between firms listed both in the Hong Kong market and the mainland. On top of that, the Financial Stability and Development Committee on financial reform and deleveraging held its first meeting last week. The key duty of this new committee will be deliberating major reform and development programs for the financial sector, and to coordinate financial regulation between the various regulators. With total credit in the system is still expanding at almost twice the rate of growth in gross domestic product, the pace of
As a result, gains were realized in terms of agreements or pledges: protecting and promoting rights for migrant workers, for instance; easing trade restrictions; rebuilding Marawi City; cooperating against radicalization, violent extremism and terrorism; implementing reproductive health measures; and respecting international law. It was a balancing act, really—President Rodrigo Duterte, who had just ended our chairmanship of the Asean, no doubt had to consider multiple and sometimes conflicting concerns as he played the gracious host. For example, there were outstanding issues with regard to our territorial claims on parts of the South China Sea. There were also reminders from some attendees to respect human rights in the context of the war against drugs—at which the President bristled, expectedly. On the whole, however, we are happy to have seen a respectable hosting stint. As the Asean chairmanship is passed on to Singapore, we hope all the things said and done in this year’s summit will contribute to the regional bloc’s development.
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36TH NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS WINNERS
WITH eight award-winning publications, Ateneo de Manila University Press was named Publisher of the Year in the 36th National Book Awards. The winners of the prestigious honors were recently announced by
the National Book Development Board and the Manila Critics Circle. The University of the Philippines Press had five award-winning books and swept all three poetry book awards: Francis C. Macansantos, “Snail Fever: Poems of Two Decades,” Poetry in English; Rowena P. Festin, “Banayad: Mga Tula;” and Victor N. Sugbo, “Taburos Han Dagat,” Poetry in Waray. The winner for Translation was a historical novel I reviewed last Sept. 10 for its interesting storyline – Ramon
Muzones’s “Shri-Bishaya” (New Day Publishers), translated by Maria Cecilia Locsin-Nava from Hiligaynon into English. Acclaimed the best novel in English was Alfred A. Yuson’s “The Music Child and the Mahjong Queen” (Anvil). The storylines within it are strung together like beads on a necklace, each bead a glittering combination of lyrical words. One of my favorite sections is “Island of Words,” which reads like an epic poem. Here’s an excerpt:
“2. The Night. […] When water meets water it is love merging not with another but of its own caressing kind, its kin in liquid, the sister of deliquescence. “It is like the sunlight in summer, so wrapped up in our skin. “It is like the love our mothers give us, unrelenting, from navel to hair. “So said the chief of our tribe on nights when the smoke the fire rose to warm the treetops beyond our gaze. The old men would nod in silence while our grandmothers touched the little bells
around their ankles. Their faint sounds joined the wind that was special to our island. We did not have to dream the music.” The best essays award went to Jose Victor Torres for “To the People Sitting in Darkness... and Other Footnotes of Our Past” (UST PH). The other winners are: Catherine Torres, “Mariposa Gang and Other Stories” (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House), Short Fiction in English; A l v i n Ya p a n , “ S a n g k at a u h a n , Turn to A5
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