"When I hit the big time, I will buy a BMW7 series car as my
marriage dowry," said sparkling 22-year-old Jian Jingtao." I'll
give it to my fiance to show him how much I love him."
In China, the cheapest BMW7 series model costs nearly 1 million
yuan (US$133,000) while the average annual income for urban
residents, nationwide, was only 12,000 yuan (US$1,600) in 2006.
Jian, a civil servant in the southwestern province of Sichuan, makes about 1,200 yuan (US$160) a
month, and she also works as a part-time weatherwoman in a TV
station in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, an impoverished area
of the province, where most people haven't even heard of BMW. The
part-time job doesn't bring her much money.
Then, how can she possibly realize her dream? Well, instead of
counting on her part-time job, she has other ideas.
"I'm taking the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) test and I've
passed Level II," says Jian, her eyes shining with hope. "Just one
step away from the best financial institutions!"
She believed getting a job in such institutions would mean she
is one step closer to her dream car.
Official data suggested that staff workers in China's well-known
financial institutions are making 15,000 yuan (US$2,000) a month
and more. And jobs in the financial sector have being taking the
lead, driven by the basic principle of a market economy's supply
and demand.
Around 45 million people will join the labor force in the next
five years in China, but many of them will have to take jobs as
laborers and construction workers and make just 800 yuan (US$107) a
month.
When lecturing in China's leading Tsinghua University, China
Construction Bank (CCB) Chairman Guo Shuqing testified that the
most troubling problem facing his bank in its "go overseas"
strategy is a shortage of talented professionals.
CCB, one of China's four biggest commercial banks, wants to set
up branches in New York and London, Guo told the students, adding
that the bank is "hungry for people specialized in financial
accounting, securities analysis, portfolio management, interest
rate pricing and foreign exchange pricing".
China, the world's fastest-growing economy with an annual GDP
growth of almost 10 percent for the last 10 years, has long been
considered the world's factory, producing about 75 percent of the
world's home appliances for example.
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But as the country moves to a more market-oriented financial
system, financial talents are at a premium because there are so
many issues to deal with.
As a major reform in the financial sector, China dropped its
currency peg to the US dollar in July 2005 and linked the yuan to a
basket of foreign currencies, allowing it to float in a 0.3 percent
band around the official central parity.
"Everything changed when they expanded the fluctuation range to
0.5 percent," says textile trader Wei Changshan from Beijing-based
Dongxing Textile Co. "I'd really like to hire someone to tell me
about how to manage it."
In July 2005, 8.28 yuan could be exchanged for one US dollar. On
July 10, 2007, the same dollar could be bought for just 7.58
yuan.
Hearkening to overseas comments, Yi Gang, assistant governor of
the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said that
the exchange rate of the Chinese currency would gradually become
more flexible.
As for the stock market, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index
surged by more than 130 percent year on year in 2006 after a
five-year bearish market, thanks to reformed securities regulations
and continuing strong economic growth.
China's stock market may become the third biggest in Asia by the
end of next year, according to a January forecast by Shanghai Stock
Exchange Executive Vice President Zhou Qinye.
As new regulations come into play concerning foreign
investments, Chinese fund managers and securities traders would
like to foot it out with overseas competitors. The lack of
financial talents seems rather serious.
A recent government document on qualified domestic institutional
investors (QDII) allows domestic fund management and securities
companies to follow commercial banks into the arena of overseas
securities.
"We started preparing for QDII products nearly six months ago,"
said Xu Xiaosong, vice general manager of China Southern Fund
Management Co., Ltd.
"So we are recruiting. Unfortunately we are not the only ones. A
number of big securities companies are looking for people," said a
fund manager who asked to remain anonymous. "It's simple. If we
want to win the competition we need the best team."
Not surprisingly, foreign banks are also on the lookout for
qualified people in China. In 2005, the Bank of East Asia opened
personal services, the first to do so in China.
In the China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue held in May, China
agreed to allow foreign banks to issue their own yuan-dominated
credit and debit cards.
The move is seen as a way of boosting fair competition between
local and foreign financial institutions.
At the Third National Conference on Financial Work in early
2007, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that China would facilitate
fair competition between domestic and foreign financial
institutions.
As the government opens the banking sector to meet its World
Trade Organization commitments, the human resources battle for the
best and brightest in the financial sector has escalated as
well.
HSBC expects to grow its headcount from 3,000 to 4,000 in China
this year and Citigroup plans to hire about 1,000 extra people.
Standard Chartered said it did not have a specific target this year
but hired 1,000 in 2006.
Finding enough experienced staff and training them adequately
was the toughest issue confronting the bank, HSBC China Chief
Executive Richard Yorke said earlier this year.
"There is no real finance education in Chinese colleges,"
noticed Wang Zhao, an economist with Peking University's China
Center for Economic Research.
"The so-called finance (education) in colleges only consisted of
macro-control measures, such as monetary policy, that hark back to
the days of the planned economy. What Chinese students want now is
courses on securities analysis and portfolio management," he
said.
A recent international survey released by Deloitte Consulting
found that two-thirds of the 636 senior finance executives surveyed
thought the supply of high-quality talent in Asia was limited or
inadequate.
"The crucial but tricky part is that you have to master
international practice as well as the local reality," Managing
Director for Asia Pacific Operations CFA Institute Jane Squires
commented.
"This year 10,200 people signed up to take the CFA test in
China, up 30 percent from last year," Squires said. "We can
reasonably project that there will be 600 more CFA holders at the
end of 2007."
"I can't say how many financial experts China needs but one
thing is certain, there is plenty of room for those who have the
capacities. The United States currently has 44,220 people who hold
the CFA qualifications. In comparison there are 3,650 in Hong Kong,
2,133 in Singapore and just 1,086 in China," she said.
China has outlined its new policies for the financial sector,
including deepening the reform of state-owned banks, facilitating
rural financial reforms, and steadily pushing forward the reform of
foreign exchange rate.
The country's financial sector is set to speed up as the market
continues to swing open.
In that case, Jian Jingtao, the young lady with so many
traditional Chinese virtues, has an excellent chance of realizing
her dream and the dream of her lucky boyfriend, probably with a
little help in the shape of a bank loan..
(Xinhua News Agency October 2, 2007)??
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