Then the case is heard Shanghai2020 not what would be a shamCertainly not

The ambitions of Shanghai excite minds. The Government officially announced in April 2009, his goal to make Shanghai the large international financial centre of the country. The stakes are huge, first for the global financial industry, all major parties take their marks; they are also of macroeconomic and political nature. The future of the Chinese currency, its eventual convertibility, its possible accession, to a more distant horizon, to the status of international reserve currency depend on the Chief of the development of a major world financial centre. It can intervene, as stated in the Government statement, by 2020

In the Bund, skyscrapers that stand en masse to Pudong may not only impress. But the financial reality of today invites to be cautious as the way to go seems important. First men: despite excellent training, it is clear that Shanghai is very far from possess skills that are expected to find in the typical market activities of a large financial centre as in Hong Kong. Then, taxation, which is, as we know, an important role in attracting and retaining the "talent": the marginal income tax rate is currently 40 in Shanghai, 10 in Hong Kong. Finally, capital, circulating widely outside Shanghai, they are in Beijing for large public banking institutions and the private estates, pass through Hong Kong. In short, Shanghai appears wedged between Beijing, where regulators are concentrated and has, on the plan policy, taken in hand a municipality unruly and corrupt, and Hong Kong, including the vitality persistent and promising was recently illustrated by the decision of the CEO of HSBC, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, to move... Then, the case is heard, Shanghai-2020, not what would be a sham

Certainly not. We should adopt a slightly different point of view and especially renounce the idea that the creation of "a financial place at the international level" would create a kind of avatar of the City. From Beijing, the financial rule of London accompanied, for Great Britain, a kind of industrial disaster. And this is a different ambition behind China, it is rather to amplify the success already acquired relying primarily on the development of the economy called "real". What is fundamentally at stake in Shanghai, it is the industrial future of the country, the promotion to higher value-added activities and the relocation into the Interior of the country, traditional activities to low labour costs.

Such a strategy to succeed, must be - and China's leaders are well aware - together all the ingredients, the training and research, the shipping and logistics, sophisticated services that requires this rise. That is the financial centre because, in this transition, China, and Shanghai in particular, will face two challenges: one, the allocation of capital will raise new issues currently used techniques will absolutely not to treat, what the recent stimulus plan confirmed by showing that only the most traditional public instruments were available; two, the international competition, as Chinese producers, leaving the single ground of common consumer goods, prepare to deal with the most sophisticated industrial of the planet, this will not happen without the competition that brings the most modern financial instruments.

Of course, Shanghai is not alone, China is large enough to accommodate several regions able to carry out this strategy, in the South or in the northeast in particular. But in this perspective, Shanghai is its comparative advantages: its infrastructure, its openness to the international, the link with the hinterland, especially with Taiwan, which will weigh heavily. In short, Shanghai will not replicate Hong Kong but it has not finished to surprise us: Shanghai will host 2010 Expo and it will be the first 151 years to not stand in a formerly industrialised country!