Speech by Zhang Xiaohui, Dean of Wudaokou School of Finance at the 2020 Tsinghua Wudaokou Global Finance Forum
Dear President Zhou Xiaochuan, Chairman Xiao Gang, President Qiu Yong, Professor Spence, Professor Maskin, Dean Zhu Min, teachers and students in front of the screen , Alumni, friends:
Good morning everyone!
First of all, please allow me, on behalf of all the teachers and students of the Wudaokou School of Finance, Tsinghua University, to extend my sincere welcome and heartfelt thanks to all the leaders, guests and friends who watched the live broadcast of the forum!
Tsinghua Wudaokou Global Finance Forum has been successfully held for five sessions. In each forum, we closely follow the theme of the times, grasp the rhythm of the times, focus on the hot and difficult issues of global financial development and China’s financial reform, and strive to integrate the ideas of Chinese and foreign financial scholars. Contribute wisdom to the development of China's finance. This year, in the face of the turbulent new crown pneumonia epidemic, the theme of our forum is "Financial War Epidemic, Overcoming the Difficulties Together". Moreover, in accordance with the requirements of meeting management and control during the epidemic, we moved the forum online for the first time and held it in the form of cloud live broadcast. I believe that under this format, everyone will have different thinking about the theme of this year's forum.
2020 is destined to be a year to be recorded in the annals of history. The sudden new crown pneumonia epidemic swept the world. Major economies such as China, the United States, and the euro area all experienced negative GDP growth in the first quarter. The United States, the euro area and the United Kingdom are expected to have GDP for the whole year. Negative growth has made the already fragile global economy worse. The recovery of the global economy depends on the degree of control of the epidemic, but it now appears that although the domestic epidemic has been basically controlled, the growth trend of overseas epidemic outbreaks is still continuing. In the era of globalization, the persistent epidemic will inevitably hit the production, consumption and trade of various countries, and then cause lasting damage to the economy. How to manage and control the epidemic while minimizing its harm to the economy and preventing the short-term impact of the epidemic from causing a long-term economic downturn has become a problem for everyone.
Faced with this problem, the world’s major economies are doing their utmost and doing their best to deal with it, and even come up with under-the-box policy tools, especially using finance as an important response tool, trying to reverse the economic downturn and avoid going away. Follow the old path of the Great Crisis and Great Recession. Countries are also similar in specific operations. The Fed’s two emergency rate cuts in March lowered the policy rate to a level of 0-0.25%, which caused an uproar in the market and triggered deep concerns among investors about the U.S. economy. It also triggered an unprecedented four circuit breaks in the U.S. stock index in a month. The Federal Reserve has provided another $377 billion in credit support for small and micro enterprises, hoping to help them tide over the crisis. The euro area was already in the zero interest rate range before the outbreak of the epidemic. The European Central Bank injected liquidity into the economies of the region through QE, and at the same time encouraged banks to extend credit to enterprises and households to maintain the vitality of the real economy. The Bank of England also lowered interest rates to the zero range in March, and took out a considerable amount of bond purchases to continue to provide banks with liquidity.
As a country where the new crown pneumonia epidemic occurred earlier, China has adopted the most thorough and effective epidemic prevention and control measures. Although the epidemic brought about the first quarterly GDP contraction in more than a decade, China also took the shortest time to control the epidemic and took the lead on the road to large-scale resumption of work and production. On the road of fighting the epidemic, China has used many financial means to stabilize the financial market and support the development of the real economy. In terms of total volume, the central bank has lowered the RRR three times this year to release long-term liquidity of 1.75 trillion yuan. The cumulative scale of the re-lending and rediscount policy has reached 1.8 trillion yuan, and liquidity has been released through open market operations by about 2 trillion yuan, maintaining liquidity. In terms of prices, interest rates have declined as a whole, and the overall financing costs of enterprises have dropped significantly. The financing difficulties and expensive financing of small, medium and micro enterprises have been effectively alleviated, and the RMB exchange rate has been relatively stable. Financial statistics released on April 11 show that the year-on-year growth rate of M2 increased significantly to 11.1% at the end of April, the highest point since 2017, indicating that the effect of the increased counter-cyclical adjustment of the previous monetary policy is continuing to appear, and the current financial accuracy Assist the fight against the epidemic to ensure supply, resume work and resume production, and encourage and guide commercial banks to further increase credit support for the real economy. More importantly, as an economy that is transforming from high-speed growth to high-quality development, we always understand that reform and opening up are the most fundamental driving force for economic development and the inexhaustible source of China's financial development. In light of this, the world’s talents will see that even under the raging new crown epidemic, China’s financialThe pace of institutional reforms and high-level opening to the outside world has also been unswerving: abolishing restrictions on the shareholding ratio of foreign securities firms, major progress in the reform of the ChiNext registration system, abolishing quotas for foreign institutional investors, and promoting further opening of the financial market. During the epidemic The continuous series of reform measures not only demonstrate China's firm confidence in persisting in financial reform and opening up, but also highlight the tremendous resilience of China's financial system. Therefore, China's financial anti-epidemic road has never been a simple act of stimulating the economy, but seizing the opportunity to continuously promote the reform and opening of the financial market, straighten out market relations, and build a global and dynamic financial market. These are not only the key to the tremendous progress in China's financial development, but also the fundamental reason for the vigor and vigor of the Chinese economy.
At present, there are still huge uncertainties in global economic development, especially the new crown pneumonia epidemic is still spreading globally. The unprecedented shock caused by this has brought new challenges to financial development. We must always keep a clear head. Only with financial stability can the economy be stable. On the one hand, China Finance must continue to experience the ability to resist risks and prevent the transmission of overseas financial risks to the country; on the other hand, it must highlight its ability to serve the real economy, continue to work hard to help the economic recovery, and help small and medium-sized enterprises to tide over the difficulties. Promote the construction of new infrastructure. In the next step, with the deepening of financial supply-side structural reforms, the modern financial system with high adaptability, competitiveness and inclusiveness will continue to improve, the efficiency of financial resource allocation will gradually increase, and the resilience of China's financial system will continue to increase. It will strongly support China to win the "double victories" of fighting the epidemic and economic and social development, and contribute its unique "Chinese experience" to the global financial fight against the epidemic.
Fight the "epidemic" together, and learn more. The Wudaokou School of Finance of Tsinghua University recruits outstanding teachers from home and abroad, improves the pattern of various types of talent training, takes root in China to carry out academic and policy research, and promotes scientific research and innovation to continuously climb to new heights. Adhering to the school motto of Tsinghua University of “Continuous Self-improvement and Virtue”, the college fulfills the mission of “cultivating financial leaders, leading financial practices, contributing to national rejuvenation, and promoting world harmony”, actively carrying out online teaching during the epidemic, and sticking to financial research positions , Organizing capable forces to devote themselves to scientific research in the financial fight against the "epidemic", struggling to overcome difficulties. The National Institute of Finance of Tsinghua University and the Institute of Financial Technology of Tsinghua University, which are affiliated to the college, actively respond to the call of the country, give full play to the advantages of the institute's interdisciplinary and rich intellectual resources, contribute to the fight against the epidemic, and provide policy advice and intellectual support. The research team of the college issued timely academic reports such as "The Recovery Status of Small, Medium and Microeconomics under the Epidemic" to provide academic support for fighting the epidemic and resuming work and production. Open the "Tsinghua Wudaokou Cloud Classroom" for the public, invite well-known experts and scholars in the fields of medicine, information technology, economics and finance to share hot topics online, pay close attention to the impact of the epidemic on the high-quality development of my country's economy, target prevention and control priorities, and help resume work and production . In the future, the college will continue to operate in accordance with the most advanced financial disciplines and higher education models of business schools in the world, relying on the rich educational and teaching resources of Tsinghua University for a century, continue to strengthen close cooperation with the financial industry, and uphold the "rigorous, diligent, realistic and innovative" Tsinghua’s style of study promotes the Wudaokou tradition of “don’t be afraid of hardship, dare to be the first, emphasize unity, and focus on contributions”, build a leading domestic and world-class financial higher education platform and financial academic and policy research platform, and cultivate high-level, innovative and international To build a first-class financial think tank.
Fight the epidemic, regardless of national borders. Today, guests from home and abroad gather together in a special way of meeting in the clouds to discuss the proposition of the financial war epidemic. I hope that all the guests can speak freely, share their insights, collide with sparks of thought, gather consensus from all parties, and contribute their wisdom and strength to China and the global financial development.
Finally, thank you all for your continued support to the college. I wish this forum a complete success, thank you everyone!
