US-Minister: Chinesen sollen dem Konsum frönen

Der US-Finanzminister fordert die Chinesen zum verstärkten Konsum auf:

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, touring this village in the Sichuan province to promote "financial modernization," urged China on Thursday to take lessons from the United States on how to spend more, borrow more and save less. Mr. Snow argued that China's consumers and entrepreneurs are badly in need of financial sophistication offered by American banks and investment banks. As he wandered through a thriving farmers' market and a traditional rural credit cooperative, Mr. Snow said that with better credit, Chinese families would be able to spend more money, buy more goods and perhaps reduce China's huge trade surplus with the United States. "Good credit facilitation and consumer finance is going to help consumers buy more things," Mr. Snow said. "We see consumerism and consumer credit as going directly to the thing we have most on our minds - the global imbalances." It has been an awkward lecture at times, given that China's economy is still growing at a blistering pace of 9 percent, is a huge magnet for foreign investors and is one of the United States' biggest creditors. China's savings rate is nearly 50 percent, one of the highest rates in the world. The savings rate in the United States, by contrast, has sunk to less than zero in recent months and is one of the lowest rates in the world. Chinese leaders have already told American officials in the last year that they need to get their own house in order by reducing their fiscal budget deficits. The Chinese leaders are also keenly aware of the debate within the United States about the rising use of risky new types of home mortgages to finance homes that people would otherwise not be able to afford. ... In a pause in his visit here, Mr. Snow said foreign financial institutions could become just as prominent in Chinese business as foreign-owned five-star hotels are in the skylines of Shanghai and Beijing. "Go to the hotels in Shanghai and you get hotel services as good as anywhere in the world," he said. "They've imported their hotels. What we're saying is you can do the same thing in finance." Mr. Snow's comments underscored the Bush administration's newest theme toward China: the need for the world's most populous nation to promote more growth at home and less from exports.