Economy
Expert: Dubai-style crash unlikely in China
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-07 10:46
JERUSALEM: An Israeli analyst said the Dubai crash will leave the world largely unaffected, with China in particular able to look at its own economy with some pride and say "a Dubai-style crash almost certainly won't happen here."
"Dubai doesn't have a real economy. It has always been a bubble economy. The country has no real consumption and no real markets," Ornit Avidar, a partner in the China-Israel Value Capital Fund, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
A former Israeli commercial attache to Hong Kong and Macau, Avidar is also familiar with the Gulf, where she used to be Israel's commercial representative to Qatar and Oman. She saw a world of difference between the approach of Beijing to that of Dubai.
Some Chinese citizens see their domestic stock exchange as a way to make money in a quick manner. Speculators are not like those in the West. The Chinese markets are less sophisticated, according to Avidar.
A large number of Chinese individuals are not looking for long-term investments, nor are they akin to the typical investors in the West.
When the Dubai construction giant Nakheel announced late last month that it could not keep up with debt repayments, billions of US dollars were knocked off the value of world stock exchanges.
The leading Dubai-based companies owe billions of dollars to British and Asian banks. The lending houses look set to swallow much of that debt. The news led to a feeling of deja vu just months after the world financial crisis hit the headlines.
These small-time investors do not know how to play the markets and could in theory pose a threat to stability, Avidar cautioned.
"However, because of the volume, this bubble is still balanced. Even if there was a big fall, not everyone would lose as we have seen over the last three years. There have been heavy losses in China but profits have continued to remain significant enough that people continue doing this," Avidar added.
Those who are able to extract their money from Dubai right now are probably looking for new investment opportunities. As far as Avidar is concerned, they need to look no further than China.
"Run and quickly. Invest, because today China is the economy with the most opportunities," she said.
Avidar believed that Chinese companies are generally under-valuated, as are their potential, which is yet another major contrast to the Dubai experience.
Any new company that sets foot in China has an immediate market of hundreds of millions of people, something that cannot be said of the United States or Europe, and most certainly not of Dubai.
"The market is there. It's vibrant, developing, growing and will only continue to get bigger, and so far the Chinese government has done exactly what it said it would," said Avidar.
Another Israeli analyst who spoke with Xinhua over the weekend said that the story of Dubai began as a praiseworthy vision a couple of generations back, yet the grand prospect all too rapidly became a case of the megalomania of its leaders.
The problem with an economy based on investments, and in Dubai's case on "over-investment," is that when the market stutters, it can roll backwards very quickly, said Aron Shai, vice-rector of Tel Aviv University, who is an expert on modern China.
"This really isn't the case in China. Chinese are very cautious and have not opted for over-investment, rather they have very sizable savings, totaling some US$2.2 trillion," said Shai.
