Despite jitters on the stock and bond markets, there is no need to panic over China's financial deleveraging, a central bank-affiliated newspaper said Monday.
Recent moves to strengthen financial regulation and moderately deleverage the sector are not a kind of "shock therapy," nor will they "detonate a minefield," said an editorial published in the Financial News.
Rather, such efforts are aimed at defusing risks accumulated in the past years of rapid financial innovation and reforms, filling regulatory gaps and safeguarding financial security, according to the editorial.
It said the deleveraging is much needed now, as China's economic slowdown may lead to exposure of the country's hidden financial risks. Meanwhile, monetary and fiscal policy adjustments in some major economies could cause spillover effects and create shocks to China's financial system.
Chinese authorities have rolled out a flurry of measures to step up risk scrutiny in the banking, securities and insurance sectors in recent months, targeting non-performing assets, shadow banking, regulatory arbitrage and other malpractice.
Concerns over the regulatory tightening have weighed on the financial market, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index having shed more than 6 percent since mid-April.
Complicated asset management products with low transparency have added financial risks and kept funds from entering the real economy, while regulation has long been insufficient, the Financial News editorial noted.
It said regulatory standards should be unified, leverage ratios should be kept under control, and funds should be guided to serve the real economy.
